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I 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE FOUNDERS 
OF LIBERTY IN AMERICA 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON • CHICAGO ■ DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



SHAKESPEARE 



AND THE 



FOUNDERS OF LIBERTY IN 
AMERICA 



BY 
CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 



•Nfm f nrk 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, igi7 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1917. 



V NOV 30 1317 



^CI.A4792D7 



\ic^ I 



PREFACE 

In this period of conflict, the sternest that the 
world has known, when we have joined heart and 
hand with Great Britain, it may profit Americans to 
recall how essentially at dl|^ with "Ejjglishmen we 
have always been in everything that counts. That 
the speech, the poetry, of the race are ours and theirs 
in common, we know — they are Shakespeare. But 
that the institutions, the law and the liberty, the 
democracy administered by the fittest, are not only 
theirs and ours in common, but are derived from 
Shakespeare's England, and are Shakespeare, too, 
we do not generally know or, if we have known, we 
do not always remember. 

"Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in 
America!" exclaims the genial humorist. "What 
does the man mean? — ^That Shakespeare hobnobbed 
with Washington or helped Jeff'erson write the Dec- 
laration of Independence?" Hardly; but something 
not itself altogether lacking in the element of sur- 
prise: that Shakespeare was acquainted with more 
than one of the English statesmen who wrested from 
King James the colonial charters by which, between 
1606 and 1620, English liberty was first planted in 
Virginia and New England — individual freedom and 
equality, due process of the law and independence 



vi Preface 

of the courts, trial by jury, the right of representative 
assembly, and government by consent of the gov- 
erned; that Shakespeare had confidential relations 
with these English patriots, the founders of American 
liberty, and that these relations are proved by the 
contents and source of one of his plays; that Shake- 
speare was In sympathy with the teachings of the 
moral and political master of the liberal movement, 
and that this sympathy is manifest In many of the 
poet's works. 

The purpose of this book Is to show, moreover, 
that the thoughts and even the words of the liberal 
master, the judicious Hooker, passed Into the minds 
of our Revolutionary Fathers and into the Declara- 
tion of Independence; and that the principles com- 
mon to Shakespeare and Hooker, to Sir Edwin 
Sandys, Southampton, and the other Patriots of 
seventeenth-century England, several of them 
Shakespeare's friends, are the principles of liberty 
which America enjoys today. The purpose is, also, 
to remind Americans that the eleven-hundred-year 
heritage of language and literature, of race, of custom, 
of law, of spirit energizing toward freedom — civil and 
religious — of political development, cherished by 
Britons at home and Britons in the American col- 
onies in Shakespeare's time, did not cease with the 
American Revolution; that the colonists were but 
asserting their rights as Englishmen under charter 
and common law, and that the hearts of the truest 
and noblest Englishmen at home were with them 



Preface vii 

in the struggle; that the heritage of today is a heri- 
tage which for fourteen hundred years has been 
ripening for the British Empire and America alike. 

The poHtical part of this heritage is the common 
property of the triad of great modern democracies — 
in order of birth, the United States of America, the 
union of free commonwealths styled the British 
Empire, the present French Republic. But the 
nursing mother of all three was the liberal England 
of Shakespeare and Hooker and their friends among 
the Patriots of early seventeenth-century England. 
What wonder that in the agony of the twentieth cen- 
tury these sister democracies march side by side that 
military autocracy may perish from the face of the 
earth! 

To the descendants of Virginia, Britannia and the 
Mayflower and of the American Revolution, to the 
descendants of their English brothers — the Patriots 
of Stuart England and the Britain of George III, and 
to the descendants of Lafayette and Beaumarchais 
and Rochambeau, — to the descendants not of the 
blood alone but of the spirit, of the heart and con- 
science, the faith and stern resolve, the undying 
devotion to freedom, right, and unconquerable hope, 
this little book is dedicated. 

Charles Mills Gayley. 

Berkeley, California, 
November 3, 19 17. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Foundations of Liberty in America . i 
II. Shakespeare and the Liberals of the Vir- 
ginia Company ...... 8 

III. The Tempest and an Unpublished Letter 

from Virginia ...... 40 

IV. The Leader of the Liberal Movement — Sir 

Edwin Sandys ...... 81 

V. Richard Hooker and the Principles of Amer- 
ican Liberty 95 

VI. Shakespeare's Views of the Individual in 

Relation to the State . . . • nS 
VII. Shakespeare and Hooker . . . .162 
VIII. The Heritage in Common: England, America, 

France 191 

IX. The Meaning for Us Today . . . .216 

Appendix 225 

Index 261 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE FOUNDERS 
OF LIBERTY IN AMERICA 



Shakespeare and the Founders of 
Liberty in America 

CHAPTER I 

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERTY IN AMERICA 

The incomparable seamen and adventurers who 
In Elizabeth's reign swept Spain from the seas, and 
bridled the West Indies and the Northern continents 
for English enterprise, colonization, law and speech, — 
Drake and Frobisher, Davis, Hawkins, Gilbert and 
Raleigh — were compatriots of our forefathers and 
pioneers of our American history. Those were the 
years of Shakespeare's youth: when he whipped his 
top in the school-yard behind the Guild Hall of Strat- 
ford; when he walked each night the hawthorn lane 
to Shottery; when he bade farewell to Henley Street; 
when he played his first parts with Leicester's com- 
pany in London. The adventurers and planters of 
Virginia, in later years when Shakespeare was writing 
Trollus and Cressida, Coriolanus, and The Tempest, 
were of his blood and temper, the blood and temper 
of the forefathers of many of us today. Their ven- 
tures and failures, their faults and virtues, are our 
history, Anglo-Saxon and American, as well as theirs. 



2 The Foundations of 

It was a group of patriots clustered about Shake- 
speare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, and Sir 
Edwin Sandys, Southampton's ally — a group of pa- 
triots, some of them friends of Shakespeare, some of 
them acquaintances, — that laid the foundations of 
constitutional government in the New World. 

They were the leaders of the Liberal, or Inde- 
pendent party in the Virginia Company of London, 
several of them leaders of that party in Parliament, 
too. Looking at first for redress from James I of 
abuses which toward the end of Elizabeth's reign 
had run to a somewhat perilous excess — favoritism, 
monopoly, subsidy, interference with control of taxa- 
tion, with freedom of election, person and speech, 
and with other political inheritance of the Com- 
mons — they soon found that under the new regime 
they had leaped from the frying pan into the fire. 
In the charter of 1606, granted for the establishment 
of plantations in Virginia, the future inhabitants and 
their posterity were to have "all liberties, franchises, 
and immunities" of British subjects; but the King 
had "reserved to himself the right to furnish the form 
of government for the companies in England and 
plantations in America, and also to appoint the offi- 
cials to execute the same. . . . The plantations and 
companies were directly under the political control 
of the Crown. . . . The members of the council in 
America had the right of suffrage among themselves; 
but they were representatives of an absolute king. 
The planters had no control over them, and little 



Liberty in America 3 

or no part in the government, which was imperial." 
The people had no political power. The industrial 
system was to be balefuUy communistic, that of "a 
vast stock farm, or collection of farms, worked by 
servants who were to receive, in return for their 
labor, all their necessaries and a share in the proceeds 
of the undertaking." ^ 

From 1608 on, the Patriots, as they wer€ called, of 
the company In London set their faces toward 
reform — none more zealously than the Earl of 
Southampton and Sir Edwin Sandys. The former 
had long been Interested in schemes for colonization. 
In 1602 he had aided in sending Captain Gosnold 
for the exploration of the New England coast; in 
1605 he had furnished with others the moneys for 
the voyage of Captain Weymouth. Of the Council 
for Virginia Southampton became a member in 1609. 
Sandys had been a member since 1607. Opposed to 
the growing imperialism of the King, his pretensions 
to divine right, his religious and political intolerance, 
and the intrigues of his tools — the Spanish or Court 
party — in the company, these and other statesmen 
moved for charters for Virginia by which the more 
dangerous prerogatives of James I should pass to 
the body politic, and by which ultimately the colo- 
nists should compass an independent development. 

* Alexander Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, 
6-7; Genesis of the United States, I, 52-63, Letters Patent of Apr. 
1606; 65-75, Articles, Instructions and Orders of Nov. i6o6; 
also J. A. Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. I, ch. vi. 



4 The Foundations of 

Burdened neither by autocracy nor communism, they 
were to be secure in the individual enjoyment of 
prosperity and of civil and religious liberty. At 
home the Patriots had suffered from despotism both 
of church and state; "in Virginia they purposed to 
erect," as Sir Edwin Sandys announced, "a free, 
popular state, in which the inhabitants should have 
no government putt upon them but by their own 
consente." ^ These Patriots were men with whom 
Shakespeare spake; and that he was in sympathy 
with the ideals of the party and in confidential rela- 
tion with some of its leaders we shall presently see. 
That we may have before us the questions at issue 
let us run rapidly over the course of the conflict dur- 
ing his lifetime and that of his immediate contem- 
poraries. 

By a charter obtained In 1609, through the efforts 
of the Patriots, the London Company for Virginia 
acquired many of the powers heretofore vested in the 
crown. The political control of the colony passed in 
a significant degree to the body politic of planters 
and adventurers. Though the planters gained no 
significant liberties, the corporation gained many; 
and the company as a whole became democratic 
in organization.^ By a third charter, in 1612, the 
Patriots acquired for the company still further 

^ Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va. Hist., 8, 11, 47. 

2 Brown, Genesis, I, 206-237, The Second Charter; 259-277, 
New Britain (showing the ideals of the Council). See also H. L. 
Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 
56-59- 



Liberty in America 5 

powers of self-direction and of dealing with the 
laziness, insubordination, and crime due in larger 
part to the still existing joint-stock provisions stipu- 
lated by the King's first charter. Soon steps were 
taken for the abandonment of the system of com- 
munal proprietorship: individual allotments were 
assigned to some of the colonists; and thus were laid 
the foundations of personal effort and industrial 
prosperity. This under the governorship of the un- 
justly execrated Sir Thomas Dale. "With great 
and constant severity," says the chief founder of our 
colonial liberties. Sir Edwin Sandys, "with great and 
constant severity he reclaimed almost miraculously 
these idle and disordered people, and reduced them 
to labor and an honest fashion of life." ^ 

In the year of Shakespeare's death, 1616, the joint- 
stock period came to an end; and the victory of the 
Patriots seemed to be in sight. But the King, as- 
sisted by the Court party, had meanwhile been laying 
plans to negative the new property rights of the colo- 
nists and utterly to defeat the aspirations of the man- 
agers. Working in collusion with certain minions 
of the King, Dale's successor, Argall, proceeded to 
obtain a patent which should turn the plantation 
into "a private or proprietary affair exempt from all 
authority to the company and the colony." The 
Patriot party which, as Lodge puts It, was "begin- 

^ For the Third Charter see Brown, Genesis, II, 540-553; 
for Dale, ibid., II, 869-874, and H. C. Lodge, Hist. Eng. Colonies 
in America, 8. 



6 The Foundations of 

iilng to make the London Company for Virginia a 
school for education in free government found that 
the governorship of their colony had been stolen, 
and the enterprise almost ruined by the court minor- 
ity. The grievances of the Virginians found, therefore, 
a ready hearing from men upon whom the hand of 
majesty had already begun to press." ^ A revolution 
in the company swept not only Argall but the King's 
party out of power. Sir Edwin Sandys, the Earl 
of Southampton, and others of the Patriot party 
In Parliament and in the company, deriving their 
authority from the liberal provisions of the charters 
which they had already secured from the King, 
framed for the suffering colonists a "Great Charter 
or Commissions of Priviledges, Orders, and Lawes." 
This was ratified by the Virginia court In London In 
1618, and under its provisions was established. In 
the year following, the first representative govern- 
ment in America. The governor's power was limited 
by a general assembly consisting of a council and of 
burgesses freely elected from each local group of 
colonists; and this assembly had "power to make and 
maintaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by 
them be thought good and profitable." By this 
charter — the outcome of the efforts of the Liberals 
at home — the foundation was laid for constitutional 
government In the New World. Government by 
consent of the governed, freedom of speech, equality 

^ Lodge, Eng. Col. in Am., 8-12; Records of the Virginia Co., 

I, es. 



Liberty in America 7 

before the law, trial by jury were assured. And by 
another constitution some three years later: all im- 
munities and franchises of English freemen were 
confirmed anew; and the usages of English law and 
English courts, and the regularity of legislative as- 
semblage, prescribed. Provision was made for con- 
sent of the company at home to legislative enactment; 
but It was provided that no orders from London 
should be binding on the colony unless ratified by 
her Assembly. Upon the charters thus culminating 
all future rights and liberties of the colonies — north 
and south, of the revolutionary America of 1775 and 
of the Republic of today, are built. ^ 

In 1619 Sandys and Southampton gained complete 
control of the Virginia Company; but from that time 
on the Patriots and the King were more than ever 
locked in combat. In 1624 the cause was temporarily 
lost. Virginia became a royal province and the 
charters were annulled. "But the principles that 
Inspired" the founders of our liberty "had been 
planted in America. The seed had germinated, and 
the tender plant was growing In our free air." ^ 

1 E. Eggleston, The Beginnings of a Nation, 51-56; Lodge, 
Eng. Col. Am., 8-12; Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., 29. 

2 Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., 53. 




Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 



CHAPTER II 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE LIBERALS OF THE VIRGINIA 
COMPANY 



Of the liberal faction in the Virginia Company, 
several, as I have said, were Shakespeare's friends or 
acquaintances; several were friends of his friends. 
Prominent among them was a group consisting of the 
Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Pembroke, and 
others who had been associates of the high-spirited 
and unfortunate Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. 
If Shakespeare did not know Essex, he at any rate 
admired him and gave him his homage. When, be- 
tween 1594 and 1596, the dramatist wrote his anti- 
Semitic play, The Merchant of Venice, it is not un- 
likely that he had in mind affairs in which Essex 
had vital and well-known interest. For the Christian 
Antonio appears to reflect the distinguished Antonio 
Perez, a friend of the Earl, and Shylock to be a 
caricature of a former protege of Essex — the Jewish 
physician, Roderigo Lopez, who had been recently 
tried and hanged for an alleged attempt to poison 
not only Perez but the Queen herself.^ This is the 

1 See Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 72, for statement and fur- 
ther references. 



Virginia Company 9 

Essex, impatient of the caresses and caprices of 
majesty, darling of the populace, whom, as "general 
of our gracious Empress" in command against the 
Irish rebels, Shakespeare had, in 1599, celebrated 
in the prologue to the last act of Henry V. This Is 
the Essex, who, falling in his Irish campaign and in- 
curring the displeasure of Elizabeth, opened nego- 
tiations with the Puritans and the King of Scots, 
and finally entered into a plot for the removal of the 
Queen's councillors. In order to foment a popular 
uprising on behalf of the Earl his fellow-conspirators 
persuaded Shakespeare's company of players to 
present Richard II, a drama which with Its scenes 
of deposition and murder had been always regarded 
by the Queen with suspicion, aversion. "I am 
Richard II," cried she afterwards, "know ye not 
that?" The man who "bespoke the play," Sir Charles 
Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, was 
familiar with Shakespeare's genius, as we see from 
his allusions to Silence and Justice Shallow in a letter 
written about a year before. The poet's tragedy 
was performed February 7, 1601, the night before 
Essex and his friends, among them the Earl of South- 
ampton and Charles Percy, made their ill-fated 
march upon the palace.-^ 

Essex died for his treason, and others with him. 
Southampton, who had already forfeited the royal 

^ See Shakesp. Allusion-Book, I, 81-3, 86-7, 98; also 
State Papers, Domestic, Vol. 275, No. 146; Vol. 278, Nos. 78, 
and 85. 



lo Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

favor by marrying Essex's cousin, without the 
Queen's consent, and more recently by accepting 
without her sanction the mastership of the Horse 
in Essex's Irish expedition, was sentenced to death, 
but reprieved and committed to the Tower for life. 
Sir Gelly Merrick who gave the 40/ to the actors 
of the Globe on that unlucky sixth of February was 
of those who were beheaded; but the players them- 
selves escaped punishment. Shakespeare kept si- 
lence. Two years later when the great Queen died, 
he still kept a significant silence; nay, was reproached 
that he did not "Drop from his honied muse one 
sable tear To mourn her death." But his reticence 
was natural. Though Elizabeth had "graced his 
desert, And to his laies opened her royal eare," 
Essex had been his admiration and Southampton was 
his benefactor and friend. To Southampton he had 
dedicated his Venus and Adonis in 1593; the next 
year, his Rape of Lucrece — and with what sincerity 
of devotion: "The love I dedicate to your Lordship 
Is without end. . . . The warrant I have of your 
honourable disposition, not the worth of my un- 
tutor'd lines, makes It assured of acceptance. What 
I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; 
having part In all I have, devoted yours. Were my 
worth greater, my duty would show greater; mean- 
time, as It is, it is bound to your lordship; to whom 
I wish long life, still strengthened with all happi- 
ness. Your Lordship's In all duty, William Shake- 
speare." Sentiments of love and duty, and profes- 



Virginia Company II 

sion of worth inadequate to express them, repeated 
distinctly in that sonnet which opens, 

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 

To thee I send this written ambassage. 

To witness duty, not to show my wit: 

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine 

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, 

But that I hope some good conceit of thine 

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it. 

Of the poet's sonnets of undying friendship there is 
little doubt that several were addressed to the same 
gracious personage, and that, conventional as their 
temper and fashion may be, they express a sincere 
affection. To no other literary patron than South- 
ampton do we know that Shakespeare indited a 
dedicatory epistle; and we know of no other who so 
munificently assisted a poet as Southampton is 
reputed to have done by Shakespeare. Even though 
the gift of which tradition informs us — "a thousand 
pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase" 
— be exaggerated, the tradition had currency within 
a hundred years of the death of both, and illustrates 
the popular recognition of their friendship. 

It was only after James I had mounted the throne 
and liberated Shakespeare's friend "supposed as 
forfeit to a confined doom" that the poet, hailing 
the era of happy augury, broke silence concerning 
the "eclipse of that mortal moon" Elizabeth: 



12 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, 

Can yet the lease of my true love control, 

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. 

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured, 

And the sad augurs mock their own presage; 

Incertainties now crown themselves assured, 

And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 

Now with the drops of this most balmy time 

My love looks fresh . . . 

And thou in this shalt find thy monument 

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. 

Ill-advised as Essex's uprising had been it was a 
movement directed against the increasing arbitrari- 
ness of the aged Queen, and with the purpose of es- 
tablishing a more liberal plan of government and 
ensuring its continuance by settlement of the suc- 
cession upon the King of Scots. By the public the 
memory of Essex was cherished: both he and his 
associates were acclaimed as patriots. None more 
so than Southampton, — and fittingly; within five 
years, as member of the Council for Virginia, he 
was heading the reformers of that company, a patriot 
still but with face now set against the tyrannous 
policy of the Stuart prince upon whose accession too 
many hopes had been built. 

To this group belonged also William Herbert, 
third Earl of Pembroke, a nephew of Sir Philip 
Sidney whose widow Essex had married. He had 
been knighted by that earl at Cadiz In 1 596, and had 



Virginia Company 13 

been on friendly terms with him; but he took no 
active part in the uprising of 1601. Pembroke was a 
heavy investor in the Virginia enterprise, and be- 
came a member of the Council in 1609. For fifteen 
years he faithfully served the interests of the colony. 
From 1620 on he was a member of the Council for 
New England as well, as was Southampton.^ That 
he was acquainted with Shakespeare, not merely in 
his function as dramatist and actor at Court but 
personally, no one can question who studies the 
evidence without prejudice. It was to Pembroke and 
Pembroke's brother, Philip, the Earl of Montgomery 
that two of Shakespeare's most intimate friends, the 
editors of the first folio of Shakespeare's plays, dedi- 
cated that volume, saying that they did so because 
"your lordships have been pleased to think these 
trifles something heretofore, and have prosequuted 

1 For the records of the Virginia Company of London, the 
lists of adventurers, and the membership of the Councils to 
1 61 9, the most convenient authority is Alexander Brown's com- 
prehensive and admirably documented Genesis of the United 
States, 2 vols., Boston, 1890. Brief but invaluable biographies 
of persons connected with the founding of Virginia are appended 
(II, 807-1068). Reference may also be made to the Abstract 
of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London (Hist. Soc. 
Va.), the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic and Colonial, the 
Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Publications, E. D. Neill's Extracts 
from Manuscript Records of the Va. Company, and his Hist. 
Va. Co. of London, Doyle's English Colonies in America, and 
his Records of the Va. Company, Stith's History of Virginia, 
the entries in the Dictionary of National Biography, Wood's 
Athenae, Aubrey's Brief Lives, and other sources as mentioned 
in the text. 



14 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

both them and their Authour Hving, with so much 
favour;" and because they "hope that . . . you 
will use the like Indulgence toward them you have 
done unto their parent." These words were written 
and published in 1623, only seven years after Shake- 
speare's death. The writers, Heminges and Condell, 
had known the dramatist for twenty years and more; 
they had acted in one after another of his plays; 
they had been his business partners for many years. 
It was not only "these remaines of your Servant 
Shakespeare" that their lordships had furthered 
with their "favour," but the "parent," while he was 
still living. The writers do not mean that as Lord 
Chamberlain, exercising supreme authority in the- 
atrical affairs, Pembroke had shown favor to Shake- 
speare. The favor was unofficial. For Pembroke 
did not become Chamberlain till 161 5, four years 
after Shakespeare had practically ceased making or 
acting plays, and had retired to Stratford, — In fact 
when he had but four months more to live. The 
period of this acquaintance and friendly relation 
was during the earlier years of James's reign, when 
Pembroke was a man about Court; or earlier still 
when, as Lord Herbert, he used to live at Baynard's 
Castle near the theatre of Blackfriars. That was 
between 1598 and 1601, just the time of the Essex 
and Southampton crisis to which we have recently 
referred. Pembroke was a well-known friend of other 
poets — of Donne and George Herbert and Vaughan; 
and he had been from 1602, especially from 1610, 



Virginia Company ' 15 

on, a "learned and most noble patron of learning" — 
of Jonson, Chapman and William Browne, and many- 
more. Now he was Chamberlain as well. It was 
therefore doubly reasonable that Hemlnges and 
Condell should turn to him for patronage when they 
were Issuing the folio of their fellow-player's works. 
The patronage they solicited was, however, not 
for Shakespeare but for themselves as editors; and 
the justification they alleged was not that Pem- 
broke had ever been the formal literary patron of 
Shakespeare as of Jonson and the rest, but that 
Pembroke and his brother had expressed their 
"likings of the severall parts, when they were acted," 
and had used "Indulgence" to the dramatist. 

"There Is great difference," say the editors, "whether 
a Booke choose his Patrones or find them: This hath 
done both." Shakespeare had done the finding. 
That Hemlnges and Condell should, In the choosing, 
associate with the Lord Chamberlain his brother, 
a distinguished nobleman, to be sure, but not patron 
of letters, needs no explanation but that given: he 
also had, not formally but personally, "prosequuted" 
the "Authour living with much favour." The per- 
sonal acquaintance of Pembroke and Shakespeare 
would probably never have been questioned had it 
not been for the untenable contention advanced by 
some that Pembroke, Lord William Herbert, was 
more than an acquaintance — no other than the "W. 
H.," the "onlle begetter" of Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
To make a clean sweep of all this, the over-zealous 



l6 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

have emptied out the baby with the bath. For our 
present purpose the plain statement of Heminges and 
Condell is enough. Like Pembroke, the Earl of 
Montgomery was in 1609 a subscriber to the Vir- 
ginia Company. He became member of the Council 
under the third charter, 1612; and as late as 1643, 
having cast his lot with Parliament against the crown, 
he is, with Pym and Cromwell, one of the commis- 
sioners appointed for the liberal government of the 
plantations in America. 

Three other adherents of the Essex group in the 
Council — Sir Robert Sidney, Sir Henry Neville and 
Lord De la Warr — were familiar with various friends 
of Shakespeare. Sidney, the brother of the match- 
less Sir Philip, was Pembroke's uncle; and with the 
Earl of Essex he had been knit by ties of affection 
as well as of family. He was created councillor for 
Virginia in the same year as Pembroke; and, as a 
liberal, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Southamp- 
ton in the battles of the company till its dissolution 
in 1624. He shared also the latter Earl's love of 
poetry and of poets. To him in the Essex days of 
1599, Southampton is sending "certain songs" 
that he may share his delight in them. As Baron 
Penshurst in 1603, and afterward as Lord Lisle, Sidney 
threw open his home at Penshurst to the poets — Ben 
Jonson and many another friend of Shakespeare. 
That the Sidney and Shakespeare of this circle of 
common acquaintance did not know each other is, 
to say the least, unlikely. 



Virginia Company 17 

The interests and intimacies of Shakespeare and 
Henry Neville, of BlUingbear in Berkshire, coincided 
in half a dozen different ways. Another of Essex's 
knights of Cadiz, Sir Henry had participated in the 
Earl's conspiracy of 1601, had been convicted of 
treason, thrown into the Tower with Southampton, 
and held there till the accession of James I. He 
was for years a close companion of Shakespeare's 
devoted panegyrist, Hugh Holland, and of Holland's 
friend, Christopher Brooke, another of Shakespeare's 
personal admirers. He was an excellent patron of 
poets, this Sir Henry — of Davies of Hereford, Ben 
Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, all well known 
to Shakespeare. His name is to be seen scribbled 
over the fly-leaf of a manuscript of "Mr. Frauncis 
Bacon's" essays and speeches (about 1597) together 
with those of Bacon (a relative) and Shakespeare: 
authorities say, by Davies of Hereford, the friend 
of all three. Neville was early interested in the Vir- 
ginia enterprise, a member of the council from 1607 
till his death in 161 5, and one of its Patriots and a 
leader of the Independent party in Parliament. 
His independence, indeed, prevented him, in 161 2, 
from becoming Secretary of State. His son and suc- 
cessor, of the same name, was a subscriber to the 
Plantation in 161 1; and one of the daughters, Eliza- 
beth, married a brother of Sir William Berkeley, 
afterwards Governor of Virginia. 

Thomas West, third Lord De la Warr, whom I 
have mentioned as of the Essex group, had taken 



1 8 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

part with them in the uprising of 1601 and been 
imprisoned therefor. A member, since 1609, of the 
Virginia Council, he remained always a close political 
ally of Southampton, Pembroke, Neville, and other 
old friends of Essex. While he was governing Vir- 
ginia in 1610-11, we find his younger brother, John, 
habitually frequenting a select and convivial dining 
club in company with Shakespeare's friends, Chris- 
topher Brooke and Hugh Holland. But of that 
later. In the history of Virginia Lord De la Warr 
plays a critical role. If it had not been for his ar- 
rival in the nick of time "before Algarnoone Fort 
the sixt of June," 1610, with reinforcements and 
supplies, the colony would have been abandoned 
by Gates and his party. And for this reason, if no 
other, the claim made for De la Warr — "If any man 
can be called the founder of Virginia he is the man" ^ 
— may be justified. Though empowered to rule 
by martial law of draconic severity, his short period 
of office was on the whole beneficial, and his services 
were acknowledged by the colonists as well as by 
the authorities at home. 

The Sir Thomas Gates whom I have just men- 
tioned forms a significant link between Shakespeare 
and the affairs of the Virginia Company. Though 
we have no testimony concerning his immediate ac- 
quaintance with Shakespeare we know that they 
had associations and informations in common. 
Gates, like Pembroke and Neville, was a knight of 
^ Gen. U. S., II, 1049. 



Virginia Company 19 

the Essex creation and supporter of the Hberal 
faction in the Virginia Company. With his adven- 
tures in the New World in 1609-10 Shakespeare was 
extraordinarily familiar. In The Tempest, written 
soon afterward, he makes use of minute details of 
Gates's shipwreck off Bermuda in 1609, of his life 
on the island, and of his experiences as lieutenant- 
general and administrator of Virginia. Of these 
details some, as we shall presently see, were derived 
from a confidential account set down in the colony, 
brought over to England by Gates, and not made 
public for years after Shakespeare's death. Sir 
Thomas was one of the original incorporators in 
1606 under the first charter for Virginia, and was 
member of the council under the second, in 1609. 
The next year he became the "first sole and ab- 
solute governor of the colony;" and from the middle 
of 161 1 till April, 1614, he was again the ranking 
officer. Of him, five years later. Sir Edwin Sandys 
said, "Sir Thomas Gates had the Honour to all pos- 
terity of being the first named in his Majesty's 
Patent and Grant of Virginia, and was also the first 
that by his wisdom. Industry, and Valour, accom- 
panied with exceeding Pains and Patience in the 
Midst of many Difficulties, had laid the foundation 
of the present prosperous State of the Colony." ^ 
In November, 1620, King James appointed Gates 
one of the "first moderne and present Councill 
established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, 
^ Brown, Genesis, II, 894; Records of the Virginia Co., I, 21. 



20 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing 
of New England in America." 



II 

Other liberals of the Virginia Company impinge 
upon Shakespeare's orbit, who were not distinc- 
tively of the Essex provenience. Some of them 
knew him. Others knew of him and probably were 
acquainted with him, for they were personally con- 
nected with his friends among poets, playwrights, 
or actors, — or with those who paid contemporary 
tribute to his personality and genius. This group 
we may style the legal-literary. First to be men- 
tioned are Christopher Brooke of Lincoln's Inn and 
John Selden of the Inner Temple. The former, of 
the Virginia Council from 1609, was a powerful 
member of the company until its dissolution. The 
latter was a member of the company after the adop- 
tion of the third charter and an adviser In legal 
affairs. With Selden Brooke drafted several of the 
liberal codes of law and government for Virginia. 
In Parliament, on more than one occasion, the two 
friends withstood the King's interference with the 
affairs of the corporation. They were both. In their 
hours of ease, poets after a fashion, members of 
the pastoral coterie of the Inns of Court; and one 
of their most cherished proteges in that coterie was 
William Ferrar, the younger son of Nicholas, at whose 
house the Virginia Courts were held for many years. 



Virginia Company 21 

Brooke's bosom friend was the poet, Donne. He 
was also intimate with Shakespeare's fellow-drama- 
tists, Jonson and Drayton, and his epigrammatic 
admirer, Davles of Hereford; and he was thoroughly- 
versed in the business affairs of Shakespeare's cor- 
poration, for he acted as advocate for certain pro- 
prietors of the Blackfriars theatre at a time when 
the poet was still one of the seven shareholders. 
That was in 161 2. The two shareholders involved 
were Shakespeare's old friends and fellow-players, 
Burbage and Heminges. The case was a bill of com- 
plaint brought before the Court of Chancery by 
one Kirkham for recovery of profits in the Black- 
friars playhouse. Brooke was one of several barris- 
ters engaged; but the records show that he played 
a very important part In having the "plaintiff's bill 
clearly and absolutely dismissed out of this courte." ^ 
Two years later this professional adviser and con- 
fidant of Shakespeare's partners published a poem 
called The Ghost of Richard HI, In which he not 
only paraphrased and quoted lines from the poet's 
Richard HI, but paid "graceful tribute" to Shake- 
speare himself. "To him that impt my fame," says 
Brooke's Ghost of Richard, 

To him that impt my fame with Clio's quill, 
Whose magick rais'd me from oblivion's den; 
That writ my storie on the Muses' hill. 
And with my actions dignifi'd his pen: 

* Greenstreet Papers, VIII, in Fleery, Hist. Stage, 250. 



22 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

He that from Helicon sends many a rill, 

Whose nectared veins are drunke by thirstie men; 

Crown'd be his stile with fame, his head with bayes; 

And none detract, but gratulate his praise. 

Such whole-hearted appreciation of Shakespeare 
still living, of his magic, his demiurgic genius, his 
nectared vein, — nay, more, such generous delight 
in the praise that others gave him — sounds a very 
personal note, Indeed. 

"In the paper buildings" of the Inner Temple 
"which looke towards the garden," as Aubrey tells 
us, Brooke's ally In politics and poetry, John Selden, 
had his chambers. There he kept "a plentlfull table 
and was never without learned company." Of 
that company were Shakespeare's Jonson and Dray- 
ton — frequently, as we know. And of It too, we 
may reasonably surmise, were their loving disciples, 
Beaumont and Fletcher. For the former was of the 
Inner Temple himself, and In 1613, Its poet and 
masque-maker; and the latter was of Selden's social, 
and family connection. For the past four years 
these Castor and Pollux dramatists had been writ- 
ing plays for Shakespeare's company at Court and 
the Globe and Blackfriars; and In 1613 Fletcher 
was engaged In the completion of Shakespeare's 
Henry VIIL 

That Shakespeare knew Sir Dudley DIgges, an- 
other legal and literary patriot of the Virginia Coun- 
cil, we may be practically certain. There was never 
a more devoted worshipper of the poet in the flesh 



Virginia Company 23 

and spirit than Sir Dudley's brother, Leonard. The 
lad was twenty-one when Dudley joined the Council, 
and but twenty-eight when Shakespeare died. Of 
that death no contemporary has written with more 
abiding sense of personal loss. His verses for the 
Folio of 1623, To the Memorie of the deceased 
Authour, are addressed not to a name but to a man 
whom alive he had viewed and honored and whom 
he misses: 

Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellowes give 

The world thy Workes; thy Workes by which out-live 

Thy Tombe, thy name must; when that stone is rent 

And Time dissolves thy Stratford moniment, 

Here we alive shall view thee still. This Booke, 

When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke 

Fresh to all Ages .... 

Nor shall I e're beleeve, or thinke thee dead — 

Though mist — untill our bankrout Stage be sped 

(Impossible) with some new strain t' out-do 

Passions of Juliet and her Romeo. 

And in another tribute, written before 1635, and 
prefixed to the edition of Shakespeare's Poems is- 
sued in 1640, it is the memory of the man Shake- 
speare that he cherishes — 

Poets are born not made: when I would prove 
This truth, the glad remembrance I must love 
Of never-dying Shakespeare, who alone 
Is argument enough to make that one. 

Nor has anyone borne more convincing testimony 
to the poet's originality and ease of composition, 



24 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

and his unquestioned authorship of the plays eulo- 
gized — Julius Csesar, Othello, Henry IV, Much 
Ado, and Twelfth Night — and to their supreme 
popularity when acted upon the stage in Shake- 
speare's day, and when Leonard was spectator of 
the "ravlsh'd Audience." The DIggeses came of 
an academic and literary family. That in the little 
world of Jacobean London Sir Dudley, himself a 
scholar, diplomat and author, did not know the be- 
loved idol of his brother is inconceivable. 

Sir Dudley was an ardent devotee to the advance- 
ment of the Virginia and Bermuda enterprises from 
his appointment to the Council in 1609 to the day 
of his death in 1639. He was in close touch with 
Southampton, Brooke and Selden; and in Charles I's 
reign, with Edward Sackville, the Ferrars, and other 
liberals, he still strove to regain for the colony the 
privileges which had made it for a time practically 
self-governing. Two of Digges's sons were likewise 
concerned. The younger, Edward, having settled 
in Virginia, preserved there the patriotic tradition 
of the family, and during the Commonwealth was 
one of those three Puritan governors, elected by 
the Assembly of Virginia, under whom the colony 
enjoyed its most prosperous days, its most inde- 
pendent administration, and its fullest measure of 
popular rights. 

With more than one of the Essex group of the 
Virginia Council and the legal-literary group, it is 
easy to link Sir Edward Sackville, later, fourth Earl 



Virginia Company 25 

of Dorset. The Sackvilles, Fletchers and Seldens 
were allied by intermarriage. To Shakespeare's 
Jonson and Drayton Sir Edward was a kindly pa- 
tron; and of Southampton, Pembroke and Brooke 
he was a loyal colleague In the promotion of the 
colony In and after 161 2. When the King was 
wrecking the Virginia Company in 1622-24, Sack- 
ville resisted with Southampton and Sandys; and, 
though a cavalier under Charles I, he remained till 
his death, in 1652, a supporter of the rights of Vir- 
ginia. 

Ill 

An amusing set of macaronic Latin verses, en- 
titled Mr. Hoskins, his Convivium Philosophicum,^ 
written between 1608 and 161 1, enlarges our pur- 
view of the social world in which some of Shake- 
speare's irlends of the Virginia Company moved. 
We catC-1 here a glimpse of a very genial club to 
which b--: ^nged no fewer than nine of the liberal pro- 
moters of the Virginia enterprise. The membership 
numbered twelve — lawyers, statesmen, patrons of 
letters, poets, architects, travellers, country knights 
and squires; and the usual place of dining was the 
Mitre Inn close by the Inns of Court. The building 
still stands at the top of Mitre Court, a few yards 
back from the thoroughfare of Fleet Street. 

^Printed by A. Clark in his Aubrey's Brief Lives, II, 50-51. 
See also Cal. State Papers (Dom.), Sept. 2, 161 1 ; and C. M. 
Gayley, Francis Beaumont, Dramatist, 146-149. 



26 Shakespeare and the Liberals oj the 



1 



The Latin invitation to the symposium, as trans- 
lated hy a contemporary, opens — 

Whosoever is contented 
That a number be convented, 

Enough but not too many; 
The Miter is the place decreed — 
For witty jests and cleanly feed, 

The betterest of any; 

and the author proceeds to rehearse the names and 
characteristics of the jolly souls "convented." 
Among them we recognize at once Christopher 
Brooke, his chamber-fellow of Lincoln's Inn, John 
Donne, and Sir Henry Neville; also Hugh Holland 
of the Mermaid Club, who wrote a few years later 
the tearful sonnet on Shakespeare's death, be- 
ginning, 

Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring 
You Britaines brave; for done are Shakespeare's dayes: 
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes, 
Which make the Globe of heav'n and earth to ring; 

and ending. 

For though his line of life went soone about, 
The life yet of his lines shall never out. 

Not only had Shakespeare such a nucleus of associa- 
tion, personal or literary, and already ascertained, 
in the club, most of the commensals were in close 
touch with his friends in town or country. Four of 
them were of the Virginia Council: Brooke, Neville, 



Virginia Company 27 

Sir Robert Phillips — appointed in 1614, a supporter 
of Southampton and Sandys, a leader of the popular 
party in Parliament, imprisoned by James I in 1622 
• — and Richard Martin, a learned Bencher of the 
Middle Temple and friend of Selden. Martin was 
much Interested In dramatic pageantry: in 161 3, 
one of the "undertakers" of that "Memorable 
Maske" for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, 
in which the chief actors posed as Virginian priests 
and princes. He was a friend of Its author, George 
Chapman, variously connected In literature and life 
with Shakespeare and closely with Ben Jonson. 
Of the regular drama as well Martin was a patron, 
and more especially of that written by his "true 
lover" Jonson. Together the twain used to fre- 
quent the merry meetings of the poets at the Mer- 
maid In Bread Street. An opponent of monopolies 
under Queen Elizabeth, Martin was always a liberal. 
He joined the Virginia Company In 1609, became 
member of the council In 161 2, and In 1614 made a 
speech before Parliament In support of the policy 
of the Earl of Southampton, Lord De la Warr and 
other proponents of Virginian liberties that Is not 
yet forgotten. He ripped up the procrastinating 
and disorderly procedure of Parliament with such 
temerity and scorn that It required all the skill of 
his fellows In the Virginia Council and the Mitre 
Club to extricate him from the consequences.^ 

Of the Mitre fellowship five other convivial souls 
* For the outline see Neill, Va. Co. of London, 68-72. 



28 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

were "adventurers" in the Virginia enterprise, 
though not members of the council. One of them, 
John Hoskins, a serjeant of the Middle Temple, 
had joined the Virginia Company in l6ll. In 1614 
we find him, also, asserting the cause of popular 
rights as against the favoritism of the king with 
such spirit in Parliament that he is given a chance 
to cool his ardor in the tower. Beloved of Brooke, 
Holland and Martin and of the dramatists and 
poets of their circle and Shakespeare's, he was of 
"excellent witt" that commended him "to all in- 
geniose persons," and an incomparable writer of 
drolleries. He is the Mr. Hoskins to whom, as we 
have seen above, the macaronic invitation to this 
"symposiaque" at the Mitre is attributed. An- 
other of those "convented" was Richard Connock, 
or Conyoke, a member of Parliament, a supporter 
of Walter Raleigh and an "adventurer" of 1612. 
A third was John West, younger brother to Lord 
De la Warr, first governor of Virginia. Settling, 
later, in the colony, West became himself governor 
in 1635, ^^^^ ^i^*i there. Of his descendants many 
have been distinguished in the history of this coun- 
try. A fourth was John Donne. An adherent of 
Essex in 1596-7, his political, literary, and social 
affiliations were In half a dozen ways Interwoven 
with those of Shakespeare. With the Virginia Com- 
pany he was first formally connected In 1622; and 
in that year, as "Brother of this Companle and of 
their Counsell," and Dean of St. Paul's, he preached 



Virginia Company 29 

their annual sermon. With rare beauty and proph- 
ecy he alludes to "the great work performed In 
the beginning of a Church and Commonwealth In 
America, where their children could be well accom- 
modated, and adds that those that were young would 
live to see that 'You have made this Island, which 
is but the suburbs of the Old World, a bridge, a 
gallery to the New; to join all to that world that 
shall never grow old, the Kingdom of Heaven.'" ^ 
Last of these Mitre Club subscribers to the colonial 
venture, a lifelong friend of Donne and Brooke, 
celebrated by Ben Jonson and acquainted from 
youth up with that other Intimate of Shakespeare, 
Drayton, was Sir Henry Goodere of Polesworth in 
Warwickshire. His uncle, of the same name, also 
of Polesworth, had been "the first cherisher of 
Drayton's muse," and our Sir Henry had married 
one of the Polesworth cousins, the "Panape" of 
Drayton's verse. The family of Goodere had fallen 
under the royal disfavor in Elizabeth's earlier days; 
and, apparently, Sir Henry the younger had been 
an Essex sympathizer. He was with the Earl in 
Ireland and was there knighted by him, in 1599. 
His name appears among those of subscribers to the 
Virginia enterprise in the list of 161 1. 

IV 

The mention of the Gooderes and of Warwickshire 
reminds us that, In the Immediate neighborhood of 
* Neill, Virginia Company of London, 361-2. 



30 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

Stratford, Shakespeare had several acquaintances 
who were prominent investors in the Virginia under- 
taking. Since 1597, Shakespeare had been the 
master of New Place in his native town. As the 
bearer of a coat of arms, and as proprietor after 
1 601 of large holdings in the neighborhood of Strat- 
ford, he had become one of the landed gentry. From 
1 601 on he spent part of every year at New Place; 
and about 161 1, though still maintaining certain 
relations with his old partners in London, he made 
it his permanent abode. ^ Of the neighboring county 
families one of the best known to him was that of 
Clifford Chambers, an ancient and beautiful seat, 
about two miles across the fields from Stratford, in 
Gloucestershire. There was much talk at Clifford 
about the Virginia plantation: for, during Shake- 
speare's later years. Sir Henry Rainsford, lord of the 
manor, was a member of the company. He was a 
member of the council, too, perhaps as early as 161 3, 
certainly by 1617-18. We find him further Investing 
in the corporation as late as 1620, when he bought 
shares of his fellow-councillor. Sir Thomas Gates; ^ 
and again in the following year he added to his 
shares. Lady Rainsford was both cousin and sister- 
in-law of the Sir Henry Goodere whom we met in 
the Mitre Club. She is the Anne Goodere, the 
"flower of womanhood" of Drayton's youthful 
homage, — the divine "Idea" to whom through life 

^ Sir Sidney Lee, Life of Shakespeare (ed. 1915), 450. 
2 Gen. U. S., II, 797, 975. 



Virginia Company 31 

he is "still inviolate." Ralnsford, himself, "Past 
all degrees that was so dear to me" Is Drayton's 
exemplar of "what a friend should be." Clifford 
Manor was Drayton's yearly resort in summer: for 
him "Many a time the Muses' quiet port." And 
near by was his fellow dramatist's hospitable New 
Place, where, according to a story handed down by 
a contemporary of Drayton and Jonson, Shakespeare 
entertained those two old friends at a "merry meet- 
ing," shortly before his death. 

Shakespeare's son-in-law. Dr. John Hall of Old 
Town, Stratford, was the Rainsfords' family physi- 
cian. He once cured Drayton while at Clifford of a 
" tertian," and he records In his observation book the 
"syrup of violets" that he prescribed for the "ex- 
cellent poet." About 1600, Dr. Hall is attending 
Lady Ralnsford after childbirth; and describing 
her as "near 27, beautiful and of a gallant structure 
of body." On other pages of his notebook are en- 
tered curious and somewhat repellent recipes with 
which from time to time he relieved her ailments; 
and he is still attending her as late as 1634.^ Not 
only through Hall and Drayton is the personal 
intercourse of Shakespeare and Ralnsford assured 
for us, but through the family of Combe at Strat- 
ford, long standing acquaintances and good friends 
of both the dramatist and the lord of Clifford Manor. 
When in 161 3, John Combe made his will. Sir Henry 

^ Dr. John Hall's Select Observations, London, 1679; pp. 18, 
134, 158 (Obs. LXVIII). 



32 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

Rainsford of Clifford Chambers was an overseer of 
it "receiving 5/. for his service, while Lady Rains- 
ford was allotted \os. wherewith to buy a memorial 
ring." And "to Mr. William Shakespeare he left 
five pounds." ^ It is interesting to note this coupling 
of the names of Rainsford and Shakespeare in the 
year when the latter was having his comedy of 
Bermudan and Virginian allusion revived at Court, 
and about the time when the former was allying him- 
self with the Virginia Company. Interesting, too, to 
recall that both Jonson and Drayton had written 
their names into the literary history of Virginia some 
seven or eight years earlier. But of that presently. 
The circle in which the Combes, Rainsfords, and 
the master of New Place moved included various 
county families about Stratford: prominent among 
these — the Verneys and the Grevilles. Of the Ver- 
neys, one, Sir Richard of Compton Verney, was an 
executor of the testamentary document mentioned 
above. And Verney's brother-in-law. Sir Fulke 
Greville, later Lord Brooke, the political philosopher, 
statesman, and poet, was the friend of more than 
one of Shakespeare's associates and the patron of 
some. Davies of Hereford, who records at one time 
his admiration of Shakespeare, records but a few 
years later his admiration of Shakespeare's neighbor 
Greville; ^ and to Greville, in whose household he 

^ Lee, Life of Shakespeare (ed. 1915), 471. 
^ Microcosmos, 1603, p. 215; and a sonnet to Greville, written 
before 1609, in the Scourge of Folly (1610), p. 194. 



Virginia Company 33 

lived as a page, Davenant, Shakespeare's young 
friend, and probably godson, acknowledged his 
deep indebtedness. Greville's estate of Beauchamp 
Court, Alcester, was but nine miles from Stratford. 
During the period, moreover, of Shakespeare's 
residence at New Place, Stratford, Greville was 
Recorder of the borough, and justice of the peace, 
paid frequent visits to the town, was entertained by 
its officials, and knew everyone of importance there. ^ 
Shakespeare and he were not far apart in years, and 
they had interests as well as acquaintances in com- 
mon. Though diverse in method and purpose of 
literary creativity, in some fields of poetic taste they 
were at one; and one idol of poetry — Sir Philip 
Sidney — both worshipped. In political outlook 
they differed sometimes in choice of protagonist 
and means, but generally they saw eye to eye. The 
charm and promise of Essex they both celebrated, 
and in his downfall both were affiicted. Of that 
"gallant young Earl," as he calls him, Greville was 
not only lover but kinsman; and he had lived at 
Essex House for the seven years preceding the 
Earl's arrest. The revolt he deplored; but he con- 
tended that Essex was innocent of treasonable in- 
tention and attributed his death to the machination 
of self-seeking flatterers of the Queen.^ The Queen 
herself, Greville, unlike Shakespeare, consistently 

^ Lee, Life of Sh., pp. 467-8. 

2 The Life of Sir Philip Sidney in Lord Brooke's Works (ed. 
Grosart), 1870, Vol. IV, 157-161. 



34 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

glorified, for he regarded her policy as the only bul- 
wark of monarchical government. That he was no 
absolutist, however — on the contrary, a liberal or 
constitutional monarchist — his writings and his 
political career fully attest. 

Here again our dramatist comes into touch with a 
leader in the Virginia movement. For Greville was 
a member of the Royal Council for the plantation 
as early as 1607, probably representing the second, 
or northern, colony; and of the London company, 
we know that he was a member In 1617.^ That, 
under James, Greville should have favored the 
"Court" or "Spanish" party Is Impossible. As 
far back as 1584, with his kinsman and dear friend. 
Sir Philip Sidney, and with Sir Francis Drake, he 
had cooperated In the memorable scheme for colo- 
nizing America with English protestants In order 
to check the power of Spain and Rome. These 
projectors of the "first propounded voyage to 
America," as Greville, In his Life of Sidney, calls It, 
wise in advance of their age, would have established 
there an abiding and extending plantation: "an em- 
porium for the confluence of all nations that love 
or profess any kind of virtue or commerce. . . . To 
the nobly ambitious the fayre stage of America to 
win honour In. To the religious divines, besides a 
new apostollcall calling of the last heathen to the 
Christian faith, a large field of reducing poor Chris- 
tians, misled by the Idolatry of Rome, to their 
* Brown, Gen. U. S., I, 93 ; II, 906. 



Virginia Company 35 

mother primitive Church. To the ingenuously in- 
dustrious, variety of natural richesses, for new 
mysteries and manufactures to work upon. To the 
merchant, with a simple people, a fertile and inex- 
hastible earth. To the fortune-bound, liberty. To 
the curious, a fruitfull womb of innovation." ^ 
Greville's retirement to private life for the eleven 
years succeeding Elizabeth's death is accounted for 
by dissatisfaction with the arbitrary trend of James's 
rule. "The further I went," says he, "the more 
discomfortable I found those new revolutions of 
time" ^ — revolutions, as we have seen, increasingly 
subversive not only of domestic but colonial liberty. 
Of these years the last four were those that offered 
Shakespeare and Greville most chance for neigh- 
borly intercourse. While Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, during the seven years which began with 
1614, Greville must have sympathized with the 
policy of Southampton, Sandys, and their fellow- 
patriots. "The high waies of ambitious Gover- 
nours," he writes, "hasten to their own desolation 
and ruin." He scorns the "misgoverned courts of 
princes." The root of despotic authority Is "the 
lavish giving away your own liberties." Among 
the dissentients, headed by Robert Rich, Earl of 
Warwick, who conspired In 1623 to surrender the 
charter rights of the colony to the King, his name 
does not appear. After his death the connection 

1 Lord Brooke's Works, Vol. IV, 1 18-19. 

2 Works, IV, 215. 



36 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

of his family with the American plantations con- 
tinued. His cousin, the second Lord Brooke, as- 
sisted in the colonization of Connecticut. 
• Only one of Greville's works, the tragedy of Mus- 
tapha, was published in his day or Shakespeare's. 
But here, as in his political treatises, we find much 
that resembles Shakespeare's sanity of view: the 
rejection of the divine sanction of kings, and of that 
oligarchical tyranny to which the " style of optimates 
and democracy" alike tends; the insistence upon 
constitutional monarchy sustained by law and ad- 
ministered by wise men in due degree of merit and 
fitness; the recognition of the frailty and pathos of 
humanity, but likewise of the wisdom and mercy 
of a higher power. Greville's religion takes refuge 
not in an appointed ecclesiastical discipline but in a 
church invisible — "of the spirit only, choosing spiri- 
tual heirs." Such, if Shakespeare had anywhere 
formulated his sovereign tolerance, would, we may 
imagine, have been his solution, too. 

V 

In the ten years beginning with 1606 the Virginia 
Council was not at any one time large in numbers. 
In 1607 there were thirty-nine councillors; and we 
have found that at least three of them moved in 
Shakespeare's London circle, Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Sir Henry Neville and Sir Fulke Grevllle, — the last, 
as we have seen, of his immediate Warwickshire 
circle as well. In the reconstituted Council of 1609 



Virginia Company 37 

(fifty members in all) there appear the names of 
three whom Shakespeare personally knew, the Earl 
of Southampton, the Earl of Pembroke, and Chris- 
topher Brooke — intimates of one or another of those 
already mentioned. Beside these there were in that 
» council Sir Dudley Digges (whose brother "loves 
the glad reHienibi auue of 'never-dying Shakespeare," 
"cannot think him dead"), Lord Lisle, Lord De la 
Warr and Sir Thomas Gates, all of whom spoke with 
friends of Shakespeare among the great, the learned 
and the poetic, at every turn. Of the fifteen coun- 
cillors added in 161 2, Philip Herbert, Earl of Mont- 
gomery, had distinguished the "Authour living" 
with his favor, and Richard Martin was Intimate with 
many of his legal and literary friends. Between 161 2 
and the time of Shakespeare's death about eighteen 
new councillors were appointed : one of them without 
doubt well and familiarly known by Shakespeare, 
his neighbor of Clifi"ord Chambers, Sir Henry 
Rainsford. In short, of the eighty-five members of 
the council during the ten years preceding Shake- 
speare's death — persons of political and financial im- 
portance, engaged In an unusually serious enter- 
prise, and In frequent consultation — at least seven 
were men with whom Shakespeare had personal 
intercourse. And of six more it may be said that, to 
avoid hearing him mentioned with admiration or 
affection by their fellow-councillors, they must have 
stopped their ears, and that, to avoid meeting him 
in the company of their associates, they must have 



38 Shakespeare and the Liberals of the 

turned the corner sharp. Of the stockholders not 
members of the council, at least five — Selden, Hos- 
kins, Sir Edward SackvIUe, John Donne, and Sir 
Henry Goodere — had relations especially intimate 
with men of letters and of public note who were 
Shakespeare's intimates as well. 

The names given above are merely a finger-post 
to the ramifications of Shakespeare's acquaintance 
with the personnel of the Virginia Company. The 
lists of subscribers, whether councillors or ordinary 
adventurers, so far as published, include a thousand 
or more names. Doubtless there are many others 
recorded but unpublished. There were, moreover, 
some seventy city companies Interested; but the 
names of the subscribing members are In only a few 
instances accessible In print. Scholars who have 
access to documents In the Public Record office, 
the muniments of city corporations, and other 
English archives are In a position to supplement 
the roll. I am sure that some such will show that 
I have but touched the fringes of the subject. For 
the general public, too, the Virginia undertaking 
was at times the absorbing topic. ^ The name of 

^ The Mr. Warden Field under whose hand the "Declaration 
of the present estate of the English in Virginia, with the final 
resolucon of the Great Lotterye intended for their supply" was 
entered at Stationers' Hall, March 9, 1614, was the Richard 
Field who in 1593 printed the first edition of Shakespeare's 
Venus and Adonis. He was from Stratford, the son of Henry 
Field, one of the assessors of the estate of Shakespeare's father 
in 1601. 



Virginia Company 39 

those who, from all parts of the realm, took chances 
in the great lotteries of 161 2 and 1614-15, is legion. 
With how many sanguine adventurers of this class 
Shakespeare conversed, we shall never know. 



40 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 



CHAPTER III 

THE TEMPEST, AND AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM 
VIRGINIA 

Even if Shakespeare had not personally known 
any of the promoters of the Virginia enterprise, it 
is impossible that he should have been unacquainted 
with, or unsympathetic toward, the movement for 
liberty in the New World as at home. In his son- 
nets, and in plays written before the first settlement 
in Virginia, he had, as will in due course be more 
fully shown, put forward ideas similar to those which 
the Patriots sought to realize — ideas of legally con- 
stituted authority as opposed to divine right, of 
monarchical responsibility, of aristodemocratic gov- 
ernment, of individual freedom and political duty, 
of equality before the law, of justice, fraternal effort 
and allegiance. His attitude in the earlier historical 
plays toward the problem of political cooperation is 
maintained in the Troilus and Cressida, written in 
1602 and published with additions in 1609, and in 
the Coriolanus, written the latter part of 1608 or 
the beginning of 1609. The attitude is In all vital 
respects the same as that adopted by Sir Edwin 
Sandys, when in 1609 he drafted the petition for a 
charter that should make of Virginia a self-govern- 



Letter from Virginia 41 

ing body politic. The political philosopher and 
statesman was attempting to put into practice the 
golden mean between tyranny and communism. 
Shakespeare, whose philosophy is of observation and 
imagination, was by no means oblivious of recorded 
political provenience as well. In the checks and 
disasters of Troilus and Cressida, he was portraying 
the chaos that ensues when political "degree" is 
suffocated. In the civil disorders of Coriolanus, he 
was portraying the ruin that impends when govern- 
ment wanders from the golden mean, and aristo- 
cratic arrogance and plebeian turbulence clash. The 
reform that Sandys was seeking to make concrete 
in a New World, Shakespeare, though with no refer- 
ence to America, as yet, was implying poetically in 
"the weal of the common" founded in ordered serv- 
ice, justice, and patriotism. 

In May, 1609, the efforts of Sandys and his asso- 
ciates of the Liberal party In the Virginia Company 
and Council were rewarded with Initial success: a 
charter containing the embryo of liberties appar- 
ently unassailable by royal prerogative had been 
secured from King James. Shakespeare's interest 
in the historic as well as the romantic significance 
of colonial events during the next two years is writ 
large In the comedy which he first put upon the 
boards toward the end of that period. To those 
who Inquire minutely and impartially into the se- 
quence of events, this comedy of The Tempest will 
reveal also a definite acquaintance on the part of 



42 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 



1 



the poet with particulars unpublished at the time, 
and filed away in manuscript by the inner circle of 
the Virginia Council. 



In June, 1609, a fleet "of seven good ships and two 
pinnaces " set out from Plymouth for Virginia, keep- 
ing till the twenty-third "in friendly consort to- 
gether." But on the twenty-fourth came up "a most 
dreadfuU Tempest" and drove the Sea-Venture — 
with Sir George Somers, admiral, and Sir Thomas 
Gates, the newly appointed governor of Virginia, 
and, worse still, with the newly granted charter, 
aboard — out of its course upon the rocks of the "dan- 
gerous and dreaded Hands of the Bermuda . . . 
supposed to be given over to Devils and wicked 
Spirits." The rest of the fleet made Virginia but 
found things in fearful condition with the little 
settlement there. By the end of the year they began 
to return to England, vessel after vessel, with news 
of the loss of the Sea-Venture, and "laden with 
nothing but bad reports and letters of discourage- 
ment." In May of 1610, however, the shipwrecked 
party of Gates and Somers, having found life after 
all not so intolerable in the gentle climate of Ber- 
muda, made its way in pinnaces built of cedar to 
Jamestown. Gates found his colony on its last legs 
as the result of faction, improvidence, and disease, 
and was about to abandon the enterprise, when 
Lord De la Warr arrived from England with pro 



Letter from Virginia 43 

visions requisite for present needs and with authority 
to rectify the evils which had brought the planta- 
tion almost to fiasco. Sailing for a fresh stock of 
cattle on the fifteenth of July, Gates reached England 
in September, 1610. In May, 161 1, he made again 
the outward voyage to Virginia. 

Not only the Virginia Company, all England, was 
agog with the adventures of the returning mariners. 
Their stories were passed from mouth to mouth. 
Broadsides and pamphlets issued from the press; 
and letters from Virginia, some to the company in 
general and some to interested Individuals, fur- 
nished the patentees with special Information some- 
times so discouraging that the council did its best 
to hush it up. 

From one or more of these sources any playwright 
might have derived the hint of a play to be called 
The Tempest, suggestions for the dramatization of a 
shipwreck, Incidents appropriate to life on a Devils' 
Island, its magical atmosphere, and reflections to 
be put into the mouths of the actors. Shakespeare's 
comedy was written after the return of Sir Thomas 
Gates in September, 1610; and, according to evidence 
generally accepted by scholars and most convincing, 
it was performed at Whitehall, the night of Novem- 
ber I, 161 1. This evidence was first published in 
1842 by Peter Cunningham in his Extracts from the 
Accounts of the Revels at Court in the reigns of 
Queen Elizabeth and James I, from the Original 
Office Books of the Masters and Yeomen — "By the 



44 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 



1 



Kings Players: Hallomas nyght was presented att 
Whithall before the Kinges Majestie a play called 
the Tempest." Recent investigations (by Mr. Ernest 
Law) of a minute, scientific, and technical kind 
indicate that Cunningham's lists of plays are gen- 
uine portions of the original manuscripts. As early 
as 1809, moreover, the honest and careful Edmund 
Malone,^ who had access to the documents before 
Cunningham was born, has said of The Tempest: 
"As I know that it had 'a being and a name' in the 
Autumn of 161 1, the date of the play is fixed and 
ascertained with uncommon precision, between the 
end of the year 1610 and the Autumn of 161 1; and 
it may with great probability be assigned to the 
Spring of the latter year." A performance, of which 
we have record, in February, 1613, may still be 
thought by some, though mistakenly, to have been 
the first. But whether the play first saw the light 
in 161 1 or in 1613 is not vital to the point which I 
wish to emphasize just here. What concerns us 
now is that not from oral sources alone, nor from 
printed declarations, narratives, and broadsides, 
accessible to the public, did Shakespeare draw the 
more interesting Bermuda and Virginia informa- 
tions for this play, but from a letter, jealously 
guarded from the public, and accessible for long 
after 1610, long after 1613, only to the inner circle 
of the Virginia Company. The reader desirous of 

1 Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (ed. 1821), XV, 
423. 



Letter from Virginia 45 

making an examination for himself of the sources 
possibly pertinent to the subject, whether in manu- 
script or print, during the years 1609 to 161 1, or 
for that matter to 1613, will find a list at the end of 
this volume.^ 

Three pamphlets may be mentioned as summing 
up any printed information concerning the Virginia 
ventures and miscarriages that may seem to have 
found its way into The Tempest. Of these the first 
was "A True and Sincere declaration of the purpose 
and ends of the Plantation begun in Virginia," etc. 
This was entered at Stationers' Hall, December 14, 
1609, "under the hands of the Treasurer and other 
officers of the Virginia Company." It is dated 
London, 1610, and is "the first tract bearing the 
endorsement: Set forth by the authority of the 
Governors and councillers established for that 
plantation." It was issued in order to allay the 
apprehensions of the public concerning the disas- 
ters of the year preceding.^ The next was "A Dis- 
covery of the Barmudas, Otherwise called the He 
of Divels, by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Sommers 
and Captayne Newport, with divers others." This 
was written by one of the survivors of the wreck, 
Silvester Jourdan, who had returned with Gates. 
It is dated by the author October 13, 1610, and was 
published in London the same year.^ But it does 

^ Appendix A. 

2 Reprinted in Brown, Genesis, I, 337-353. 

^ Reprinted in the 1809-12 edition of Hakluyt's Voyages, and 
Histories of Interesting Discoveries: A Supplement, 763-770. 



46 The Tempest^ and an Unpublished 

not appear in the Stationers' Registers and was not 
authorized by the Virginia Council. The third was 
"A true Declaration of the estate of the Colony of 
Virginia, with a confutacon of such scandalous 
reportes as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy 
an enterprise." It was entered at Stationers' Hall 
on November 8, 1610, and published the same year 
"by order and direction of the Councell of Virginia." ^ 
The materials for this declaration are drawn partly 
from Sir Thomas Gates's "Report upon Oath of 
Virginia" as delivered on his return to the Council, 
but not separately published, and principally from 
information contained in letters received from Vir- 
ginia, not published till after Shakespeare's death. 

From the True and Sincere Declaration of De- 
cember, 1609, mentioned above, and from a Broad- 
side which serves as an appendix, an intending 
dramatist might, if he had stopped his ears to the 
subjects of public conversation, have gathered for 
the first time that one of the reasons for the failure 
in Virginia had been "the misgovernment" — under 
the presidency of Captain John Smith — "of the 
Commanders by dissention and ambition among 
themselves" and "the Idlenesse and bestiall slouth 
of the common sort, who were active in nothing but 
adhearing to factions and parts even to their owne 
ruine;" that to remedy these and similar abuses, an 
expedition had been sent out under the conduct of 
Sir Thomas Gates as "ow^ able and absolute gov- 

^ Reprinted by Peter Force, Tracts, III, Washington: 1844. 



Letter from Virginia 47 

ernor;" that "a terrible tempest" had overtaken 
and "scattered the whole fleet;" that four of the 
fleet had "met in consort" and made their way with- 
out "their Admiral" to Virginia; that later three 
other vessels had reached harbor, but that still the 
Admiral-ship was missing, with the Governor and 
"all the Commissioners and principal persons 
aboard." He would also learn that the rest "being 
put ashore ... no man would acknowledge a 
superior nor could from this headlesse and unbridled 
multitude be anything expected but disorder and 
riot." The council, however, "doubts not but by 
the mercy of God," the Governor "is safe, with the 
Pinnace which attended him, and shall both, or are 
by this time, arrived at our colony." And from the 
Broadside the enquirer would learn that the "most 
vile and scandalous reports, both of the Country it- 
selfe, and of the Cariage of the businesse there," 
circulated at home, were attributable to "some few 
of those unruly youths sent thither," who "are 
come for England againe," and to "men that seeme 
of the better sort, being such as lie at home, and do 
gladly take all occasions to cheere themselves with 
the prevention of happy successe in any action of 
publike good." That "it is therefore resolved that 
no . . . unnecessary person shall now be accepted, 
but onely . . . sufficient, honest and good artif- 
icers . . . surgeons, physitions, and learned di- 
vines." 

If Shakespeare had not talked with returned 



48 The Tempestj and an Unpublished 

voyagers nor read other and fuller accounts than 
Jourdan's narrative, the next on our list, we might 
be confident that he made use of that narrative in 
the composition of The Tempest. Jourdan's Dis- 
covery was the first published account of the ship- 
wreck of the Sea-Venture and of the ten montlfs 
spent in the Bermudas. It is, however (as given in 
Hakluyt), but a four-page quarto; and the sugges- 
tions of any possible value to a Shakespeare are 
found on the first page and a half. From none of 
them should we conclude that he was dependent upon 
Jourdan; for practically everything here, and much 
beside pertaining to the subject, is definitely dis- 
coverable in other and better sources with which the 
poet was certainly acquainted. In the remaining 
pages of Jourdan — the description of the islands, 
the resumption of the voyage, and the arrival in 
Virginia — there is nothing uniquely suggestive of 
any feature of Shakespeare's Tempest. 

The third pamphlet mentioned above, A true 
Declaration of the estate of the Colony of Virginia, 
covers, first, details of the storm, the wreck, the 
Bermudas, and the escape (the whole summed up 
as a "Tragicall-Comsedie"), and, secondly, the 
"testimonies of the causes of the former evils and ' 
Sir Thomas Gates his Report upon Oath of Vir- 
ginia." The earlier sections display half a dozen 
similarities in expression and three or four in thought 
with Jourdan that recur in The Tempest. But they 
also narrate, in common with Shakespeare, one or 



Letter from Virginia 49 

two striking particulars of the storm, of which 
Jourdan makes no mention. The latter part, deal- 
ing with Gates's testimony concerning Virginia, con- 
tains significant material of which Shakespeare be- 
trays knowledge; but not Jourdan. 

As I have said, the general trend of what is con- 
tained in these and other pamphlets may have 
reached Shakespeare by way of conversation. But 
the coincidences existing between The Tempest and 
the True Declaration alone have their common 
source in no publication issued at the time. Their 
common source was the private letter from Virginia 
to which I have made reference above. We find not 
only that much of the True Declaration which does 
not appear in The Tempest is drawn verbatim from 
that letter, but also that words, phrases, figures, 
incidents of The Tempest which do not appear in 
the True Declaration or any other printed account 
must, if derived from anything other than hearsay 
or the dramatist's Imagination, have received their 
suggestion from that letter. And that they are not 
all derived from hearsay or Imagination appears 
from the frequency of the parallelisms. 

This letter, the common source of the True Decla- 
ration as a whole and of such portions of The Tempest 
as deal with the expedition of Sir Thomas Gates, 
was written by one of the survivors of the wreck, 
William Strachey, who according to his own state- 
ment officiated as secretary for Gates on his arrival 
at Jamestown and was appointed secretary and 



50 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

recorder of the council in Virginia by Lord De la 
Warr when, in June, 1610, he took over the governor- 
ship from Gates. Strachey's letter, sent from the 
colony July 15, 1610, is addressed to an "excellent 
Lady" in England. It is confidential and, from 
June 2, 1609 up to the time of its despatch, describes 
with vivid fidelity and unvarnished detail all the 
happenings of the intervening period — discourage- 
ments, mutinies and murders, factions, misgovern- 
ment, wanton sloth and waste, misery and penury, 
fraud and treason, death by starvation and disease 
and cruel encounter with the savages. It was not 
made public till 1625, after the dissolution of the 
Virginia Company. Then for the first time it saw 
print in a collection known as Purchas his Pilgrlmes,^ 
under the title "A true Repertory of the wracke, 
and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight; upon, 
and from the ilands of the Bermudas : his comming to 
Virginia, and the estate of that Colonie there, and 
after, under the government of the Lord La Warre, 
July 15, 1610, written by William Strachey, Es- 
quire." The chapter headings were supplied, not 
by Strachey, but by the geographer and collector, 
Hakluyt, who had obtained possession of the manu- 
script, or by Samuel Purchas, who received it from 
Hakluyt and prepared It for the press. The first 
chapter heading, for instance, "A most dreadfull 
Tempest (the manifold deaths whereof are here to 
the life described)," on the one hand contains an 
^ Edition of 1906, Vol. XIX, pp. 5-72. 



Letter from Virginia 51 

editorial compliment to the author's style; on the 
other, is inaccurate, for there were no deaths from 
the tempest. The marginal notes, critical, supple- 
mentary, sometimes bombastically humorous, and 
with references to "our former tome," are evidently 
by Purchas; so also, the insertion at the end of the 
letter of a passage based upon A True Declaration, 
De la Warr's letters, and other sources. The general 
title also, "A True Repertory, etc.," was probably 
framed by Hakluyt or Purchas. 

From. the materials of this "Letter to an Excellent 
Lady" in England, which as I have said remained 
in manuscript till 1625, Strachey as secretary for 
the Council in Virginia drew up a despatch, dated 
Jamestown, July 7, 1610, "From the Lord De la 
Warr, Governor of Virginia, to the Patentees in 
England." It also Is strictly confidential; it does 
not touch upon the shipwreck, but it sets forth the 
unhappy condition of the colony with the same 
frankness as the still unsent Letter to an Excellent 
Lady, recommends the same remedies, and as em- 
phatically prophesies success if the remedies be 
adopted. The manuscript of this De la Warr des- 
patch, preserved in the British Museum, is ad- 
dressed and dated In Strachey's handwriting, and 
is signed by him In conjunction with De la Warr, 
Gates, Somers and two of the other three members 
of the Council. It remained In manuscript till 1849.^ 

^ Harl. M. S. 70C9, fol. 58; publ. by R. H. Major in his Intro- 
duction to The Historic of Travaile into Virginia Britannia by 



52 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

From the form as printed by the Hakluyt Society 
we discover that nine of the thirteen pages are an 
almost verbatim reproduction of the Letter to an 
Excellent Lady. Both that letter and the despatch 
reached England with Sir Thomas Gates in Sep- 
tember, 1610. 

The True Declaration, which, as we have seen, 
Shakespeare may have read, was ready for publica- 
tion in little more than a month after Gates's ar- 
rival. The compiler — for so far as the historical 
matter goes the pamphlet is but a restatement — 
had the two manuscripts mentioned above before 
him as he wrote. From the De la Warr Despatch 
he draws nothing that is not merely confirmatory 
of the information contained in Strachey's original 
"Letter;" but from that letter, afterwards pub- 
lished as A True Reportory, he draws much that 
was not repeated in the Despatch.^ It is, indeed, 
surmised by some that the rough draft even of the 
True Declaration was prepared by Strachey himself 
and sent over with Gates. But the compiler, prob- 
ably Sir Edwin Sandys, must have consulted Jour- 
dan's printed Discovery as well for he embodies 
from it some five phrases not found in his other 
sources. These phrases do not recur in Shake- 
speare's Tempest. In fact with but one or two excep- 
tions, which I shall presently mention, there is no 

William Strachey, the First Secretary of the Colony (Hakluyt 
Society, 1849). 
^ See Appendix B. 



Letter from Virginia 53 

similarity between Shakespeare and Jourdan that 
is not also common to the True Declaration or 
Strachey's Letter to an Excellent Lady. Fully 
twenty passages of the Declaration are drawn verba- 
tim or almost verbatim from the Letter, and of these 
three or four reappear in The Tempest. But Shake- 
speare makes use as well of minute and vivid details 
narrated by Strachey, of which the Declaration 
makes no mention. 

No other account written or printed before Hal- 
lowmas, 161 1 or, for that matter, February, 161 3, 
save Strachey's confidential letter could have fur- 
nished Shakespeare not only with certain unique 
suggestions but with the sequence of verbal details 
regarding the wreck, the Bermudas, and Virginia, 
discoverable in The Tempest. 

II 

The dramatist, being a landsman and more than 
ordinarily acquisitive, might have "milked some 
returned mariner," as Furness has conjectured, and 
Kipling contended with independent and artistic 
ingenuity; but why — when he was borrowing other 
hints from Strachey's letter, and with but slight 
imaginative effort could turn them Into something 
poetically rich and strange.'' Several basic facts 
and conceptions related not only by Strachey but 
by Jourdan and the True Declaration might, in- 
deed, have been furnished by any returned mariner: 



54 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

"the dreadful storme and hideous;" the "wracke" 
upon the Bermudas "rent with tempests, great 
strokes of thunder, lightning and raine," an "in- 
chanted place" or "pile of rockes," counted of most 
"no habitation for men, but rather given over to 
Devils and wicked Spirits;" the miraculous delivery 
without loss of life; the islands found "to be as 
habitable and commodious as most Countries of 
the same climate and situation," "the place itself 
contenting" and with "abundance by God's provi- 
dence of all manner of good foode." General in- 
formation of this kind might have been derived from 
hearsay as readily as from any manuscript or printed 
account. So, also, with Shakespeare's more detailed 
"leaky" ship and the wreck "nigh shore," which 
appear in all three sources; the "mariners all under 
hatches stow'd," who weary with "their suffer'd 
labour" have been "left asleep," and the "Mercy 
on us" from the cabin, when the ship strikes, which 
are suggested by Jourdan and Strachey, but not by 
the Declaration; the day turned into night, the 
"amazement" of the sea-captains and mariners, the 
mysterious and "fearful objects scene and heard" 
about the island, mentioned or suggested in the 
Declaration and Strachey, but not in Jourdan; the 
"Down with the topmast," "We split, we split," 
paralleled in the account of Strachey alone; the use 
of the term "hardly accessable," and the mention 
of "fairies" in the Declaration alone; the leave- 
taking at sea, and the temperate air of the island, 



Letter from Virginia 55 

implied by the others but specifically mentioned by 
Jourdan alone. 

Such materials may have been commonplace of 
current report. They might have been evolved from 
the general reading, observation or imagination of 
the most modestly equipped poet. But that does 
not blind us to the fact that Shakespeare has trans- 
muted particulars of which the minute and sole 
suggestion Is to be found in Strachey's letter; and 
that he frequently transmutes them in the connec- 
tion indicated by Strachey. 

Of the tumult of the storm, Strachey says: "fury 
added to fury; . . . our clamours dround in the 
windes, and the windes in thunder. Prayers might 
well be in the hearts and lips, but drowned In the 
outcries of the Officers;" and then: "We had now 
purposed to have cut downe the Maine Mast." ^ 
In the Tempest, Shakespeare's boatswain orders 
"Down with the topmast," and hears A cry within. 
"A plague," he shouts, "upon this howling! They 
are louder than the weather or our office." Then 
the mariners: "All lost! To prayers! All lost!" — 
On the same page with "the outcries," Strachey 
speaks of "the glut of water;" Shakespeare too 
in the same sequence: "Though every drop of wa- 
ter .. . gape at widest to glut him:" the only 
appearance of that word "glut" in Shakespeare. — 
Shakespeare's Miranda, some ten lines further down, 
beseeches Prospero: 

^ Strachey, 7, 12. 



56 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

If by your art, my dearest father, you have 
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. 
The sky it seems, would pour down stinking pitch. 
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, 
Dashes the fire out . . . O, the cry did knock 
Against my very heart! 

Prospero soothes her, "Be collected; no more amaze- 
ment: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done." 
Now, the True Declaration tells us that "the heavens 
were obscured, and made an Egyptian night of three 
dales perpetuall horror." But it was not from the 
Declaration, that Shakespeare drew the sequence 
of the roaring, the hellish pitch, the extinguishment 
of the fires of heaven, and Miranda's sensibility to 
the cry of the sufferers, her amazement; It was from 
the page in Strachey's letter already used and that 
preceding (6, 7). "A dreadful storm," says Strachey, 
"began to blow . . . which swelling, and roaring 
as it were by fits ... at length did beat all light 
from heaven; which like an hell of darknesse turned 
blacke upon us. . . . The senses (taken up with 
amazement) the eares lay so sensible to the terrible 
cries, and murmurs of the windes, and distraction 
of our Company, as who was most armed, and best 
prepared, was not a little shaken." — Descriptions 
of St. Elmo's fire Shakespeare might have found in 
Tonson of 1555 or In a half-dozen other sources, 
but in none just that chrysalis of the ethereal crea- 
ture "flaming amazement" who glorifies this second 
scene of The Tempest. The hint is in the "appari- 



Letter from Virginia 57 

tion," as poetically recounted hy Strachey four 
pages further down — and by him alone of all his- 
torians of the Bermuda tempest — "The heavens 
look'd so blacke upon us, that it was not possible 
the elevation of the Pole might be observed: nor a 
Starre by night, not Sunne beame by day was to 
be scene. Onely upon the thursday night Sir George 
Summers being upon the watch had an apparition 
of a little round light, like a faint Starre, trembling, 
and streaming along with a sparkeling blaze, halfe the 
height upon the Maine Mast, and shooting some- 
times from Shroud to Shroud, tempting to settle 
as it were upon any of the foure Shrouds; and for 
three or foure houres together, or rather more, halfe 
the night it kept with us; running sometimes along 
the Maine-yard to the very end and then returning." 
And how Sir George Somers and others observed 
it ''with much wonder and carefulnesse; but upon a 
sodaine towards the morning watch, they lost the 
sight of it, and knew not what way it made. . . . The 
superstitious Sea-men make many constructions of 
this Sea-fire, . . . the same (it may be) which the 
Grecians call Castor and Pollux, of which, if one 
onely appeared without the other, they took it for an 
evil signe of great tempest. The Italians call it (a 
sacred Body) Corpo sancto: The Spaniards call it 
Saint Elmo. . . . Could it have served us now 
miraculously to have taken our height by, it might 
have strucken amazement, and a reverence in our 
devotions according to the due of a miracle. But 



58 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

it did not light us any whit the more to our knowne 
way." ^ This "sacred Body," "an evill signe of 
great tempest," is the protoplast of Shakespeare's 
delicate Ariel of Argier. Strachey, by the way, has 
mentioned the storms known to him off Algeere a 
moment or two earlier. This is the spirit of whom 
Prosper© demands, "Hast thou . . . performed to 
point the tempest that I bade thee.^'" "To every 
article," replies Ariel: 

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
I flamed amazement. Sometime I'd divide 
And burn in many places. On the topmast, 
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, 
Then meet and join. ... 

• The pages of Strachey are turbulent hereabout 
with thunder, lightning and rain, with "windes and 
Seas as mad as fury and rage could make them," 
with the huge Sea that "brake upon poop and quar- 
ter," the terror and danger that "ranne through the 
whole Ship with much fright and amazement, 
startled and turned the bloud, and took down the 
braves of the most hardy Marrlner of them all." 
Indeed, of himself, he says: "The Lord knoweth, 
I had as little hope as desire of. life in the storme, 
and in this it went beyond my will; because beyond 
my reason, why we should labour to preserve life. 
Yet we did, , . . the most despairefuU things" 

^Strachey, 1 1, 12. 



Letter from Virginia 59 

amongst men being matters of no moment with 
Him who is the . . . essence of all mercy." Of 
these conditions there may be some reminiscence 
in what follows of Shakespeare's account: "The 
fire and cracks," says Ariel — 

The fire and cracks 
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune 
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble, 
Yea, his dread trident shake. 

"My brave spirit," exclaims Prospero — 

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil 
Would not infect his reason? 
Ariel Not a soul 

But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd 
Some tricks of desperation. 

After the wreck upon Prospero's isle — though 
that be land of faerie in Shakespearian seas far from 
"the still-vex'd Bermoothes" whence Ariel fetched 
his dew — the identity of particulars between The 
sTempest and Strachey's letter persists. Not in 
Jourdan's narrative, or any other, of Gates's expedi- 
tion do we find basis for parallels, verbal or inci- 
dental, such as the following. Any one might be 
fortuitous; but taken in the lump, they are impres- 
sive: Strachey's search for "running Springs of fresh 
water," ^ — and Caliban's "fresh springs" and "brine 

^The quotations from Strachey in this paragraph will be 
found respectively and in order on pp. 20, 18, 22, 23, 24, 16, 7, 
12, 34-35. 



6o The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

pits;" Strachey's "Berries, whereof our men seeth- 
ing . . . made a kind of pleasant drink," — and 
Caliban's "water with berries in it;" Strachey's 
"Owles and Bats in great store" and a "kinde of 
webbe-footed Fowle, . . . which Birds with a light 
bough in a darke night (as in our Lowbelling) were 
caught . . . which for their blindenesse were called 
the Sea Owle," — and Sebastian's suggestion that 
they "go a bat-fowling (or lowbelling);" Strachey's 
further description of these birds "of the bignesse 
of an English greene Plover, or Sea-Meawe [or sea- 
mell]," that "breed in those Hands which are high, 
and far alone" and are caught on "the Rockes or 
Sands," — and Caliban's "I'll get thee young sea- 
mells [misprinted in the folio, "scamels"j from the 
rock;" Strachey's description of the '^Tortoise . . . 
such a kind of meat, as a man can neither absolutely 
call Fish nor Flesh, keeping most what in the water, 
and feeding upon Sea-grasse like a Heifer,^' — and 
Shakespeare's invention of Caliban, who is for Pros- 
pero "tortoise," for Trinculo, "Man or a fish? A 
strange fish!", for Stephano "moon-calf" on all 
occasions. 

If the reader is hospitable to further coincidences, 
let him note the following: Strachey's "mightiest 
blast of lightning and most terrible rap of thunder 
that ever astonied mortal man . . . and many 
scattering showers of rain which would passe swiftly 
over, and yet fall with such force and darknesse for 
the time as if it would never bee cleere againe," 



Letter from Virginia 6i 

and his earlier, "It could not be said to raine, the 
waters like whole Rivers did flood in the ayre." 
Compare Trinculo's discomfort in the frequency 
and plethora of the storms: "Another storm brew- 
ing; yond same black cloud . . . looks like a foul 
bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should 
thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide 
my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall 
by pailfuls. [Thunder] Alas, the storm is come 
again!" — Earlier, Strachey has told us, "We threw 
overboard much luggage and staved many a Butte 
of Beere, Hogsheads of Oyle, Syder, Wine . . . and 
heaved away all our Ordinance on the starboord 
side." Compare Shakespeare's Stephano: "I es- 
caped with a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved 
overboard," and (to Caliban), "Bear this away 
where my hogshead of wine is." — Strachey's mal- 
contents in Bermuda who arranged to meet our 
men "at a pond of fresh water;" then "like Out- 
lawes betooke them to the wild woods," "desiring 
for ever to inhabite heere"; then audaciously de- 
manded of Sir Thomas Gates that he "furnish each 
of them with two Sutes of Apparell." Compare 
Shakespeare's Stephano and his viceroys conspiring 
"to make this island" their "own for ever," who 
battle their way through woods of toothed briars 
and thorns and the pond by no means fresh to settle 
accounts with the master of the isle; arrive at his 
cell; encounter the suits of "glistering apparel" 
which he has hung out, and stay their "bloody 



62 The Tempest^ and an Unpublished 

thoughts" to make themselves first masters thereof. 
This "apparel" motive is neither unique in fiction 
nor highly inventive, but it is of a piece with the 
fact as recorded in the letter of which Shakespeare 
has already made free use. Otherwise it would not 
be worth mentioning. 

The name Caliban, as everybody has heard, ap- 
pears to be shaped from Caniba, or Calibana, the 
Italian for the land of the Caribbean Indians, sup- 
posed to be eaters of men. The name Gonzalo, 
also unique in English dramatic literature of the 
time, is common in records of travel. In Hakluyt's 
Navigations, which undoubtedly Shakespeare had 
perused, there are Gonzaluses and Ferdinandos and 
Stephanos and other names used in The Tempest. 
Such names, as well as Caliban's "Setebos," are 
found also in Eden's Historie of Travayle, 1577. 
"Prospero", "Ferdinando", "Alonzo", and "Anto- 
nio" occur in Thomas's Historye of Italye, 1561; 
and "Prospero" and "Stephano", among the 
dramatis persona of the 1601 quarto of Every Man 
in his Humor. But the names Gonzalo, and Ferdi- 
nand, leap to the eye in Strachey's account of the 
shipwreck: "Gonzalus Ferdinandus Oviedus" ^ is 
Strachey's authority for the reputation of the "Hand 
Bermudas" and its Devils, and he takes pains to 
tell her Ladyship, his correspondent, so. Gonzalo 
and Ferdinando were already named for Shakespeare 
before he set them ashore. 

^ Strachey, 14. 



Letter from Virginia 63 

Touching Stephano, I blush to say that as it is 
he who on Prospero's island comes in singing: 

I shall no more to sea, to sea, 
Here shall I die ashore, — 

as it is he to whom, ringleader of the baser sort, 
occurs the thought: "the King and all our company 
else being drowned, we will inherit here" — as it is 
Stephano who would be "king o' the isle" with 
Trinculo and Caliban as viceroys, and who warns 
Trinculo: "if you prove a mutineer, the next tree;" 
so in Bermuda it was a Stephen who headed the 
first dangerous mutiny. Strachey has already told 
how "the major part of the common sort" were 
willing "to settle a foundation of ever inhabiting 
there J ^ how secret discontents beginning "in the 
Seamen . . . had like to have been the parents of 
bloudy issues and mischiefes," how the seamen 
joined landsmen to them, and how this first con- 
spiracy was crushed. Now he proceeds: "Yet 
could not this be any warning to others, who more 
subtilly began to shake the foundation of our quiet 
safety, and therein did one Stephen Hopkins com- 
mence the first act or overture: A fellow who had 
much knowledge in the Scriptures, and could reason 
well therein, whom our minister therefore chose to 
be his Clarke, to reade the Psalmes, and Chapters 
upon Sondayes." This same Stephen in January 
"brake" with two others "and alleaged substantial! 
arguments, both civill and divine (the Scripture 



64 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

falsly quoted) that it was no breach of honesty, con- 
science, nor Religion, to decline from the obedience of 
the Governour, or refuse to goe any further, led by his 
authoritie (except it so pleased themselves) since 
the authoritie ceased when the wracke was committed, 
and with it they were all freed from the government of 
any man; and for a matter of Conscience" they were 
"bound each one to provide for himself," and "to 
stay in this place," there being "abundance of God's 
providence of all manner of goode foode," etc. This 
Stephano of real life, brought forth in manacles and 
faced by the two accusers with whom he had con- 
versed, made "answere, which was onely full of 
sorrow and teares, pleading simplicity and deniall. 
But hee being . . . generally held worthy to satis- 
fie the punishment of his offence, with the sacrifice 
of his life, our Governour passed the sentence of a 
Martiall Court upon him, such as belongs to Mutinie 
and Rebellion. But so penitent hee was, and made 
so much moane, alleadging the ruine of his wife and 
children in this his trespasse, as it wrought in the 
hearts of all the better sort of the company, who 
therefore [Captain Newport and Strachey among 
the rest] went unto our Governor . . . and never 
left him untill we had got his pardon." * Whether 
this puritan proponent of freedom from authority 
and of "Inheriting here" was the contributory evo- 
cation of Shakespeare's "drunken butler, Stephano," 
I dare not say. Shakespeare had an ever ready 
^ Strachey, 28, 30-31. 



Letter from Virginia 65 

ridicule for the anarch, and a tolerant smile for the 
extravagances of the Puritan. Stephen was both 
anarch and sectary; Stephano but the former, and 
by no means knowledged in the scriptures. It may 
engage descendants of the Mayflower to know that 
having returned to England, the Brownist Hopkins, 
with his second wife and two children of his first, 
joined himself in 1620 to the Bradford and Brewster 
expedition and, in more congenial company this 
time, settled permanently in the Plymouth Colony. 
As one of the twenty-two passengers on that im- 
memorial craft from whom descent in America has 
been proved, he has, of his progeny alone, com- 
memorators today more numerous by far than were 
the colonists whose hearts he softened that day 
toward the end of January, 16 10. This, however, 
is desipere in [or ex\ loco. Whether Shakespeare 
borrowed names from Strachey or not, to make an 
argument out of it would be precious and inconse- 
quential. We have already sufficient evidence that 
he knew his Strachey from first page to last. 

If the coincidences between The Tempest and 
Strachey's letter were confined to details of romantic 
adventure Shakespeare's interest would not appear 
to be out of the common. His acquaintance with 
the document would be proved, but we should have 
no indication of his political opinion. Does he, like 
the hungry generation of contemporary dramatists 
seize upon the plum-duff and forget the rum and 
blue fire? The sequence may provide the answer. 



66 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

No sooner has Strachey recounted the safe arrival 
of Sir Thomas Gates in Virginia than he proceeds 
to describe the disordered state of the Colony ^ — 
" not excusing likewise the form of government of 
some errour, which was not powerfuU among so 
headie a multitude — the miserable effects in sloath, 
riot and vanity; . . . continual wasting, no hus- 
bandry, the old store still spent on, . . . And with 
this Idlenesse . . . the headlesse multitude (some 
neither of qualitie nor Religion) not imployed to 
the end for which they were sent hither; no, not 
compelled (since in themselves unwilling) to sowe 
corne for their owne bellies, nor to put a Roote, 
Herbe, etc. for their owne particular good in their 
Gardens or Elsewhere." . . . And this in "one 
of the goodliest Countries under the sunne"; for 
"no Country yeeldeth goodlier Corne, nor more 
manifold increase . . . thousands of goodly Vines 
in every hedge and Boske, running along the ground 
which yeelde a plentiful Grape in their kinde," 
abundance of all things richly bestowed by nature, 
if but manured and dressed by the hand of hus- 
bandry, all "suffered to lie sicke and languishe. 
Only let me truely acknowledge, they are not an 
hundred or two of deboist hands ... ill provided 
for before they came, and worse to be governed when 
they are here . . . that must be the carpenters and 
workemen in this so glorious a building." With 
the usual result in abuse where no provision for 
^ Strachey, 46-51. 



Letter from Virginia 67 

legitimate profit had been made, there was no sys- 
tematized truck with the Indians. "And for this 
misgovernment, chiefly our Colony is much bound 
to the Mariners" who dishonestly forestall the 
market with them by night; and to the usury of the 
Masters, and the frauds of the Pursers. The natural 
outcome of communism and divided rule, to be 
cured only by "the better authoritie and govern- 
ment now changed into an absolute command." 

Something of this "tempest of dissention" had 
already been conceded in the True and Sincere 
Declaration of December, 1609. And still more had 
been embodied from Strachey's Letter to an Excel- 
lent Lady in the True Declaration, which as we 
know had been published in November, 1610: — 
the "Every man overvaluing his owne worth, would 
be a Commander; every man underprizing another's 
value denied to be commanded;" the "Every man 
sharked for his owne booty, but was altogether 
carelesse of succeeding penurie;" the "idlenesse," 
the "treasons," the "want of government." But 
the account of natural abundance, the corn and 
vines and chance for tilth and profit, and of the 
wasteful sloth, the "headless multitude" and "privie 
faction" of Virginia, in the unpublished letter is 
more minute and vivid; and if Shakespeare has so 
far been drawing upon the materials of the letter, 
it is but natural that he should continue to do so. 
It is also natural that as his enchanted island is a 
composite of Bermuda and of islands "by wandering 



68 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

sailors never seen," so also his animadversions upon 
colonial communism should be a transmutation — ■ 
neither of Bermudan fact nor of Virginian alone, but 
of both. 

The shafts of Strachey's reality, Shakespeare 
points with Irony. No sooner has the poet brought 
to shore the shipwrecked king and court of Naples 
than, out of a clear sky, his wise and loyal Gonzalo 
with a sort of "merry fooling" animadverts upon 
the Virginia plantation, and propounds Utopia. 
"Had I plantation of this isle, my lord. . . . And 
were the king on't, what would I do?" Then, 
adapting Montaigne's embellishment of the golden 
age: 

F the commonwealth I would by contraries 
Execute all things: for no kind of profit 
Would I admit; no name of magistrate; 
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, 
And use of service, none; contract, succession, 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; 
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; 
No occupation; all men idle, all. 
And women too, but innocent and pure; 
No sovereignty. 

Upon which the rascally Sebastian, "Yet he would 
be king on't;" and Antonio, "The latter end of his 
commonwealth forgets the beginning." But Gon- 
zalo, still playing with Montaigne and communism — 
may we not say in the light of the Virginian fiasco.'' — 



Letter from Virginia 69 

All things In common Nature should produce 
Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony, 
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine 
Would I not have; but Nature should bring forth, 
Of its own kind, all foison, — all abundance, 
To feed my innocent people. 

These, "all idle" and "knaves," Gonzalo "would 
v^^Ith such perfection govern, Sir, T' excel the golden 
age." So the subacid Gonzalo, of the kingless com- 
monwealth of which he should be king. So with 
exemplification by contraries, Shakespeare in the 
sequel of his play — the speedy treasons of Sebastian 
and Antonio "where no name of magistrate is 
known," the inheriting ambitions and "bloody 
thoughts" of the "deboshed" and Idle poor. And 
so, Strachey and Sandys drawing upon him, of the 
plantation where "every man would be a Com- 
mander." 

The improvidence resulting from the original 
common stock system in the plantation of Virginia, 
and the anarchy where none was "sole and ab- 
solute governor," were precisely the curses which, 
when Shakespeare's whimsical "plantation of this 
isle" was put upon the stage, the friends of Shake- 
speare In the Virginia Council were striving to lift 
from the shoulders of their colony. 



70 The Tempest^ and an Unpublished 

III 

In this exposition of the relation of The Tempest 
to its colonial origin, the purpose has been not so 
much to show that Shakespeare was alive to a matter 
of contemporary interest and had his definite opinion 
concerning the political questions involved — so had 
every alert Englishman of the day, — as to show 
that, aside from hearsay, his main source of informa- 
tion was a letter so revelatory, so confidential, that 
it could not be, and was not, published at the time. 
/ That he should have had access to a manuscript 
privately circulated among members of the Vir- 
ginia Council, Southampton, Sandys, and the rest, 
I is of significance, more vital than has hitherto been 
\ recognized, in our understanding of Shakespeare's 
\ intimacy with the leaders of the Virginia enterprise; 
and that it has not been generally recognized is due 
largely to the fact that until recently historians and 
editors, not considering that intimacy and its possi- 
bilities, have loosely conveyed the idea that the 
poet's source of information was published between 
1610 and 161 2. This they have accomplished by 
manifold devices: by coupling it, as a narrative ac- 
cessible to all, with tracts or pamphlets actually 
published during that period; or by citing it with 
such tracts under the title, A True Reportory, which 
was not coined by Strachey, nor known to anyone 
till the publication of the letter by Purchas in 1625; 
or by speaking of it under that title as "reprinted 



Letter from Virginia 71 

in 1625," thus implying an earlier publication; or 
by christening it "a publication, possibly printed 
in 1612," or, with definite and unpardonable inex- 
actitude, "a tract which appeared in 1610-12;" or, 
still worse, by gratuitously apprising us that "this 
pamphlet was written in 1610, and printed in London 
before the close of the same year" — a statement 
calculated to deceive the very elect. Of recent 
scholars, I am glad to note that Professor Greene 
in his edition of The Tempest says that Shakespeare 
"may have seen the original manuscript, perhaps 
while it was in the keeping of Hakluyt, who trans- 
mitted it to Purchas;" ^ and that Mr. Morton Luce 
holds that "he must surely have seen it." ^ What 
some have conjectured, I hope has been proved 
here once and for all. 

It may be well to recapitulate the history of 
Strachey's letter, so far as known. It was, as we 
have seen, addressed to an Excellent Lady in Eng- 
land. It was brought to a close at Algernoone Fort, 
Point Comfort, July 15, 1610. It was forwarded 
the same day by Sir Thomas Gates, who arrived in 
England in September of that year. Who the lady 
was may possibly yet be determined; but since we 
are not here indulging in conjecture, I have relegated 
my own guess to a less conspicuous corner.' At the 

1 H. E. Greene, The Tempest, p. viii, in The Tudor Shake- 
speare, 1913. 

2 Morton Luce, The Tempest, pp. 149-161, in The Arden 
Shakespeare. 

3 See below, Appendix C. 



72 The Tempestj and an Unpublished 

time of Hakluyt's death, 1616, the manuscript passed 
with other of his papers into the hands of Samuel 
Purchas, hy whom it was included, under the title, 
A True Reportory, etc., in Purchas his Pilgrimes, 
issued from the press in 1625. Neither the British 
Museum nor the Bodleian Library owns, or knows, 
of any edition printed before that date. No other 
library, European or American, has ever announced 
possession of an earlier edition or knowledge of its 
existence. Nor has any book collector. No record 
of printed books — the Register of the Stationers' 
Company, or subsidiary record — has ever listed a 
printed copy other than that of Purchas. No scholar, 
however nodding, has dreamed, or dreamed of tell- 
ing us, that he has seen a copy printed before 1625. 
As to the original manuscript, the Keeper of manu- 
scripts in the British Museum writes, in answer to 
my query, "I have made a complete search under 
Strachey's name, and under Bermudas, Somers' 
Islands, Summer Islands, without success. We have 
nothing of William Strachey except the travels 
through Virginia in Sloane MS. 1622." My corre- 
spondent. Miss Parker, at the Bodleian Library re- 
ports, "I have made an exhaustive search for MS. 
of A True Reportory of the Wracke, etc., but have 
met with no success. The Bodleian certainly con- 
tains no such MS. Everything seems to point to 
the fact that the 'Reportory' was not printed until 
Purchas got hold of it; and it seems highly probable 
that the Ms. has perished." 



Letter from Virginia 73 

Considering all the premises it is, moreover, 
"practically inconceivable that the original manu- 
script of Strachey's narrative, or an early copy of 
it, can be on record as existing without having been 
promptly published by some student of Shakespeare." 
So writes my friend, Mr. A. W. Pollard, Assistant 
Keeper of printed books in the British Museum, in 
an informal response to my inquiries. He continues: 
"For the same reason it is inconceivable that a 
printed edition earlier than that of 1625 can be on 
record. Furthermore (and this is less obvious) it is 
practically inconceivable that the Reportory should 
have got into print in 16 10-12, and all copies of it 
disappeared." This is true for its contents would 
have created a tremendous sensation and would 
have been exploited by the Court party as damaging 
to the control of the Liberals in the Virginia enter- 
prise. "It would have ruined Strachey's career," 
proceeds Mr. Pollard, "to have published it at such 
a time; the Wardens of the Stationers' Company 
would never have passed it, and it could only have 
been printed secretly, and about this time to the 
best of my belief no secret printing was going on." 
This is significant. So far as the present writer 
knows, the only publication dealing with political 
affairs in Virginia that appeared during these years, 
without license of the Stationers' Company (which 
itself, was a member of the Virginia Company), 
got itself into print — not secretly but by indirec- 
tion — under the patronage of clergymen who were 



74 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

disaffected with the poHcy of the Virginia Council. 
That publication is a eulogy of the deposed and dis- 
contented Captain John Smith: an adverse criticism 
of the management of the enterprise under the 
Patriot party in the Council. It Is entitled The 
Proceedings of the English Colonic In Virginia . . . 
1 606-1 6 1 2, was compiled probably by the Reverend 
William Symonds, and was printed In the latter 
year, not In London but at Oxford, by one Joseph 
Barnes. The Register of the Stationers' Hall shows, 
continues Mr. Pollard, that during these critical 
years, "books about the Virginia Company's affairs 
were entered 'under the hands' of very Influential 
persons, as a guarantee of their being harmless. 
The company was getting up two lotteries, and 
doing its best to repair the fiasco of 1609-10. Now, 
Strachey's account Is written of course as by a well- 
wisher of the company to another well-wisher, but 
to my thinking It Is much too frank to have been 
allowed In print while a very Influential company 
was trying to raise more men and more money. 
Hence Its circulation in manuscript, In which form 
Shakespeare may, of course, have read It, If he 
didn't, as Kipling plausibly contends, get his knowl- 
edge from a drunken seaman." 

Mr. Kipling's contention, as we have observed, 
cannot dispose of the numerous and frequently 
unique resemblances between The Tempest and 
Strachey's narrative. And the Inconceivability of 
that narrative having found its way into print before 



Letter from Virginia 75 

The Tempest was written corroborates the conclu- 
sion from historical evidence at which I had already 
arrived. The letter was not printed so long as the 
Virginia Company was in the control of the Patriot 
party. It was printed one year after the Patriots 
were suppressed and the Virginia charters annulled; 
and then, 1625, by an editor recognized as the of- 
ficial historian of James and the tyrannical party 
at Court. 

Though Strachey returned to England late in 
October, or early in November, 161 1, and was lodg- 
ing the next year in Blackfriars, information derived 
personally from him could not permeate a play acted 
on the first of November, 161 1. And even if one 
cling to the indefensible supposition that The Tem- 
pest was not acted before February, 1613, the close 
verbal and literary coincidences between the play 
and the letter are of such a kind as could not be ac- 
counted for by any mere conversation that Shake- 
speare may have had with Strachey. 

Sir Thomas Gates, who brought to England the 
Letter to an Excellent Lady, was a member of the 
council. The letter was entrusted by this lady to 
influential members of the council, and one of them, 
probably Sir Edwin Sandys, incorporated from it 
such portions as were fitting for the True Declara- 
tion issued to the public; and Hakluyt was allowed 
to file it away for printing In a supplement to his 
Discoveries of the World when the right time should 
come. Sir Thomas Gates and Richard Hakluyt were 



76 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

of the four original adventurers nominated as prin- 
cipals In the earliest charter of the London Com- 
pan7, 1606, and were vitally concerned in the suc- 
cess of the colony. The letter was always in the 
keeping of those vitally concerned until Purchas 
got hold of it. That Shakespeare was allowed to 
read it and to use certain of its materials for a play, 
as with just discrimination and due discretion he 
did, is illustrative of the closeness of his intimacy 
with the patriot leaders of the Virginia enterprise. 

IV 

Among the poets of Shakespeare's circle a few 
had been celebrating "fruitfuUest Virginia" from 
the day of Spenser down. Samuel Daniel had sung 
of Virginia in his Musophilus of 1603 : 

And who In time, knows whither we may vent 

The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores 

This gain of our best glory shall be sent; 

T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores.^ 

What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident 

May come refin'd with accents that are ours, 

Or who can tell for what great work in hand 

The greatness of our style is now ordain'd? 

He dedicated the poem to that patron of the Vir- 
ginian adventure, Fulke Greville, of whose proximity 
to Shakespeare in Stratford we are aware. At various 
points the career of Daniel touches that of Shake- 



Letter from Virginia 77 

speare. He was a protege and pralser of Southamp- 
ton, and a tutor in the Pembroke family; and in 
this same year, 1603, we find his name associated 
with those of Shakespeare, Holland, Jonson, Dray- 
ton, Chapman, Marston, as among the "most preg- 
nant witts of these our times" still living. 

In 1605, Ben Jonson, collaborating In a comedy 
of frequent reference to Virginia, got into trouble 
for a passage written by his colleague, Marston, 
In which it is suggested that. If the King's brother 
Scots would only betake themselves to the new 
plantation, "wee shoulde finde ten times more com- 
fort of them there then wee doe heere." Said Jonson 
to Drummond of Hawthornden: "He was delated 
by Sir James Murray to the King, for writting some- 
thing against the Scots, In a play Eastward Hoe, 
and voluntarily Imprlssonned himself with Chap- 
man and Marston, who had written It [the play] 
amongst them. The report was that they should 
then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After 
their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there 
was Camden, Selden and others; at the midst 
of the feast his old Mother drank to him" and 
showed him poison which she would have mixed in 
his drink, "If the sentence had taken execution." 
Henceforward, Jonson rather religiously refrained 
from references to Virginia. But he could not keep his 
hands oif altogether. In his Staple of Newes (1625) 
he pokes fun at "the blessed Pokahontas, the great 
king's daughter of Virginia," for "coming forth of," 



78 The Tempest, and an Unpublished 

therefore having entered into "the womb of a 
Tavern." 

In 1606, Shakespeare's friend Drayton crowned 
himself laureate of the new English world. His 
Ode to the Virginia Voyage has the proper pith 
and swing: 

You brave heroique minds, 
Worthie your countries name, 

That honour still pursue, 

Goe and Subdue, 
Whilst loytering hinds 
Lurk here at home with shame! . . . 

And in regions farre, 

Such heroes bring yee foorth 

As those from whom we came; 

And plant our name 
Under that starre 
Not knowne unto our north! 

Still another of Shakespeare's fellows touches 
upon colonial events, George Chapman, who in his 
Epicede on Prince Henry, 161 2, describes the tempest 
off the Bermudas already immortalized by the greater 
poet: a lumbering eifort. To Chapman's Masque 
of the Two Inns of Court, 161 3, with its troop of 
Virginia priests and princes doing homage at the 
nuptials of the Palgrave and the Princess Elizabeth, I 
have already referred. 

There are other mentions of Virginia in the literary 
prose and verse of the day; but on the whole the 



Letter from Virginia 79 

use made by the poets of this chapter of contem- 
porary history is slight and of Httle imaginative 
worth. When we consider the failure of others to 
realize the momentous implications, our feeling is 
not so much of wonder that Shakespeare made little 
use of destinies still on the knees of the Gods, as 
of happy recognition that, when he made drama 
of the environing romance, he failed not to make 
also shrewd allusion to the political breakers, the 
tempest of dissension that nearly drove the venture 
on the rocks. If to him and not to his colleague, 
Fletcher, could with certainty be assigned the eulogy 
to James I written about 161 2 for the last scene of 
Henry VIII: 

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 

His honour and the greatness of his name 

Shall be and make new nations. He shall flourish, 

And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 

To all the plains about him. Our children's children 

Shall see this and bless Heaven — 

we might rejoice that, so far as "our children's chil- 
dren" are concerned, what were perhaps his latest 
lines were those of "a prophet new inspired." But 
Shakespeare did not write them. They are in the 
cadence and diction of Fletcher.^ Still the prophecy 

^ The rhythms of the scene are in general those of Fletcher. 
The diction and figure of the lines quoted above are a remi- 
niscence of Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster (1610) V, v. 213- 
215: "That you may grow yourselves over all lands. And live 
to see your plenteous branches spring Wherever there is sun" 



8o The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

lives in their joint name; and, little as the future 
conduct of James justified any encomium, the lines 
will breathe to all time the confidence of one of 
Shakespeare's friends in the blessing that England 
was to confer upon the world: for the plantation of 
England in Virginia was a Christian crusade as well 
as a commercial and political undertaking. 

(by Beaumont); and of V, iii, 26-30, "These two fair cedar- 
branches, the noblest of the mountain where they grew straight- 
est and tallest, under whose still shades,"' etc. (by Fletcher). 
The figure of tree and shade, of course biblical, occurs also 
in the Virginia Council's True and Sincere Declaration of Dec. 4, 
1609. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 8 1 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LEADER OF THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT — SIR EDWIN 
SANDYS 

Very close to Southampton, Pembroke, Sack- 
ville, Neville, Gates, Brooke, Selden, Digges and 
the Ferrars In the effort, between 1608 and 1624, to 
erect a free state in Virginia, stood Sir Edwin Sandys, 
the son of the Archbishop of York. Whether Sandys 
and Shakespeare were personally acquainted we 
know not, but they had friends in common; and 
that they sympathized with the political ideals of 
the same master, we shall soon have abundant proof. 
A man "of rare gifts and knowledge and great res- 
oluteness, the incomparable leader of the liberal 
statesmen, one of the greatest men of a great age," 
Sir Edwin was the noblest patriot of the first quarter 
of the seventeenth century. From 1607 to 1624 
he was a member of the Virginia Council, and in 
that council was always an ardent advocate of re- 
form. It was he who drafted the charter of 1609 
by which certain evils of the Virginia government 
were removed. And it was, in all probability, he 
who prepared the instructions given to Gates in 
that year, as "sole and absolute governor," for the 
suppression of factions and mutinies by martial law 



82 The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

and the institution of civil order. "In all matters 
of Civil Justice," says the author, "you shall find 
it properest and usefullest to proceed rather upon 
the naturall right and equitie than upon the nice- 
ness and lettre of the lawe." ^ In the preparation 
and confirmation of the improved charter of 1612, 
Sandys was prominent. He favored and supported 
the institution of free tenancy and the development 
of private holdings, by which Governor Dale in 
1614 prepared the colony for its transition from the 
communistic and plantation type to that of in- 
dividual effort and provincial economy. In 1617 
Sandys became assistant-treasurer of the council, 
and from that date his ascendancy is marked. To 
his effort was largely due the charter of 161 8, by 
which provision was made for the establishment of 
representative government in Virginia; and it was 
under his treasurership, or governorship, of the com- 
pany in 161 9 that the first Virginia Assembly con- 
vened — "the first example of a domestic parliament 
to regulate the internal concerns of this country, 
which was afterwards cherished throughout America 
as the dearest birthright of freemen." ^ 

In Parliament, Sandys was of the popular party 
in opposition from 1604 to 1614. From the first, 
we find him insisting that the general and perpetual 
voice of men is as the voice of God himself. In 

1 Ashmolean MS., quoted by H. L, Osgood, Am. Col. Seven- 
teenth Century, I, 63. 

2 Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., and authorities as cited, p. 29. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 83 

committee In the House of Commons, 1606, he says, 
"When written law is wanting, we must fall back 
upon precedent; when precedent fails, upon the ratio 
naturalis,^^ that is to say, collective reason, the com- 
mon sense of mankind.^ This was the interpreta- 
tion of the law of nature and of nature's God recently 
enunciated by Sandys's great teacher, Richard 
Hooker, in the treatise Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical 
Polity, — an Interpretation not unfamiliar to Shake- 
speare. In 161 2 Sandys Is a leader in the Remon- 
strance against the King's conduct toward Parlia- 
ment. In 1614 his famous speech of May 21 sounds 
the keynote of the constitutional reform which he 
helped to achieve In both America and England. 
He maintained that even though a Parliament 
would, It "cannot give liberty to the king to make 
laws;" that "the origin of every monarchy lay in 
election;" that this election was two fold, "of person 
and of care" — In other words, "not only of the in- 
dividual entrusted with executive authority but of 
the character and limitations of that authority;" 
that "the people gave Its consent to the king's au- 
thority upon the express understanding that there 
were certain reciprocal conditions which neither 
king nor people might violate with Immunity; and 
that a king who pretended to rule by any other 
title, such as that of conquest, might be dethroned, 
whenever there was force sufficient to overthrow 

1 Nathan Abbott, Characteristics of the Common Law, St. 
Louis Congress of Arts and Science, II, 279. 



84 The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

him." ^ Here again the idea was derived from 
Richard Hooker. The poHtical concepts involved, 
as we shall presently see, are those of Shakespeare's 
Richard II (1595-7), and of the later plays in so 
far as reference is made to the relation of ruler and 
subject. For the six years following 1614 there 
were no parliaments. From 1621 till after the death 
of James, Sandys heads the patriots in the House 
of Commons — always the proponent and defender 
of free institutions and free speech. 

Of Hooker, Sandys had been the pupil at Corpus 
Christi, Oxford, and he remained his lifelong friend. 
Like Hooker, he was a firm supporter of the discipline 
of the Church of England, and in his youth, at any 
rate, an active opponent of the separatist tendencies 
of Brownists and Barrowists. Like his master he 
favored, however, the emancipation of the mind in 
matters of religious belief; and in his maturer years 
he became, as we shall see, the champion of the 
Separatists themselves in their efforts to secure 
freedom as regarding forms of worship and ecclesi- 
astical regimen in the New World. Civil liberty 
he had advocated from his youth, but, again like 
his master, in terms of obedience to constitutional 
order and to a law higher still — the unchanging 
expression of universal reason. Hooker admired 
the polity of Calvin's Republic of Geneva, but 
distrusted the dogmatism of scriptural infallibility 

^D'Ewes's Journals of the House of Commons, I, 492-3; 
and a paraphrase in D. N. B., art. Edwin Sandys. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 85 

upon which that theocracy rested. Sandys, "at 
harte opposed to the government of a monarchie," 
went beyond his master in admiration of the Genevan 
Republic; but largely because the civil polity of 
Geneva appeared to furnish a model, neither auto- 
cratic nor purely democratic, but of the aristo- 
democratic mean. To Hooker's teaching, to the 
political wisdom of Sandys, to the legal experience 
of such men as Selden and Brooke,^ to the practical 
intrepidity of these and of Southampton, Sir Edward 
Sackville, the Ferrars, and their fellow-patriots in 
the Virginia Company and in Parliament, America 
owes the colonial charters of 1609, 1612, 1618 with 
their successive triumphs over royal prerogative; 
and to them it owes the institution of common- 
wealths where the idea of EngHsh liberalism was 
to attain fruition. To them we owe the idea of a 
state whose sovereignty is in all the people, but 
whose government, in the hands of their chosen 
representatives ruling by law of public approbation — • 
the idea of an ordered economy of equal rights, but 
of function according to degree of merit and ability. 
The solicitude displayed by Sandys in matters of 
civil polity is manifest as early as 1609, also in 
regard to matters of religious liberty. No sooner 
had the charter of that year been wrested from the 
king than invitation was sent to "His Majesty's 

1 For Sir Francis Bacon, in politics a reactionary and ab- 
solutist, but associated with Selden, Brooke, and Sandys in the 
preparation of Letters Patent for Virginia, see Appendix D. 



86 The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

subjects in the Free States of the United Provinces, 
oflFering them in an English colony in America the 
place of refuge which they were seeking in the Nether- 
lands." * At that time, because of the opposition 
of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king, the 
move came to nothing. But of "His Majesty's 
subjects" those most concerned, even then, were 
the future Pilgrims to New England; and in the 
invitation the hand of Sandys is unmistakable. 
His interest in at least one of the leaders of the 
English Separatists in Holland, William Brewster, 
was personal and of long standing. In their youth 
they must have frequently met in the little village 
of Scrooby, which was the home of Brewster; while 
the Manor House close by was the property of 
Edwin's older brother, Sir Samuel Sandys, and was 
at various times inhabited by Edwin himself. They 
had, as mutual friend, George Cranmer, who was 
beloved of Sandys from boyhood and was Brewster's 
colleague in the official household of Queen Eliza- 
beth's Secretary of State, Davison. In 1585 we 
find Cranmer and Brewster accompanying the 
Secretary as assistants, on an embassy to Hol- 
land. Cranmer and Sandys were at the time fresh 
from the tuition of Richard Hooker, and thrill- 
ing with his idealism, humanism, prophetic in- 
spiration. A few years later they are counseling 
their tutor in the preparation of his Ecclesiastical 
Polity. 

* Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., p. 15. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 87 

In 1600 Cranmer "a gentleman of singular hopes" 
died. But the connection between Sandys and 
Brewster continued. The latter had returned to 
Scrooby in 1588. Till his departure for Holland in 
1608 he was living there, and as late as 1607 was 
conducting the prayer meetings of the Separatists 
in the Manor House of Sir Samuel Sandys, "a firm 
advocate of toleration." 

In 1608, Brewster and the Reverend John Robin- 
son with their Separatist congregation made their 
escape from Scrooby and the surrounding villages to 
Holland. The proposed emigration to America of 
the next year was, as we have seen, for the time 
abandoned; but in 1617 two of their congregation, 
then of Leyden, visited London and "found the 
Virginia Company very desirous to have them go" 
to America, "and willing to grant them a patent 
with as ample privileges as they had or could grant 
to any." In order to remove the objections of the 
king and others to the religious purposes of the 
Separatists, a letter of seven articles, signed by 
Robinson and Brewster, was conveyed to the Vir- 
ginia Council. In response to this we find Sandys, 
then assistant-treasurer, sending on November 12 
his "hartie salutations" to Robinson and Brewster 
and assuring them not only that the articles are 
acceptable, but that the agents of the congregation 
in London have "carried themselves with good 
discretion." His letter concludes: "If therefore it 
may please God so to directe your desires as that 



88 The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

in your parts there fall out no just impediments, 
I trust by the same direction it shall likewise appear 
that, on our parte, all forwardness to set you for- 
ward shall be found in the best note which with 
reason may be expected. And so I betake you with 
this designe (which I hope verily is the worke of 
God) tQ the gracious protection and blessing of the 
Highest." He subscribes himself "Your very loving 
friend." ^ When, in 1620, the Pilgrims set sail, it 
was with a promise obtained by Sandys from the 
king that their freedom to worship as they pleased, 
though not formally ratified by royal authority, 
should at any rate be connived at; and the grant 
with which they set sail — that of February, 1620 — 
had been "examined and sealed in view of and with 
approbation of the members [of the council] present" 
at the house of Sir Edwin Sandys, then governor 
of the company, near Aldersgate. It confirmed 
the Pilgrims in all the privileges of a body politic 
already assured by charter to the colonists of South- 
ern Virginia: freedom of person, equality before 
the law, the right to participate in the government 
of themselves, and to enjoy all liberties, franchises, 
and immunities as if they had been abiding and 
born within the realm of England. "For the pres- 
ent," says their pastor, the Rev. John Robinson, 
in his farewell letter to the whole ship's company, 
"you are to have only them for your ordinarie 

^ Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 31; and E. D. Neill, 
History of the Virginia Company of London, 122-129. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 89 

Governours, which your selves shall make choyse 
of for that worke." 

Such had been the service rendered by Sandys 
to the founders of New England. There can be no 
doubt that the qualities displayed by William Brew- 
ster, as Elder of the congregation in Leyden and 
afterwards In the Plymouth Colony were colored 
by long association with his "very loving friend," 
Sir Edwin Sandys and their intimate from youth, 
George Cranmer, as well as by a first-hand acquaint- 
ance with the printed word of Richard Hooker. 
This kinship with the school of that great master is 
reflected in the genial humanity, the liberal knowl- 
edge and outlook, the conservative wisdom, with 
which the historic Elder moulded the civil polity 
of the first settlement In New England, and held 
in check tendencies elsewhere manifested toward 
religious bigotry and oppression. 

Time and again Sandys resisted the king's arbitrary 
dictation in the Virginia Company. His election 
to the governorship for a second term, in 1620, the 
king forbade, — "declaring that he was his greatest 
enemy, and that he could hardly think well of whom- 
soever was his friend," and concluding, "Choose 
the Devil If you will but not Sir Edwin Sandys". 
Southampton, whom the patriots thereupon elected 
instead, undertook the office, saying, "I know the 
king will be angry at it, but so the expectation of this 
pious and glorious work may be encouraged, let 
the company do with me what they please." For 



9© The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

their determination to found in America the free 
state which they could not found at home, Sandys 
and Southampton, Selden, Lord Cavendish, and the 
Ferrars, more than once, suffered arrest and con- 
finement at the king's pleasure. More than once 
these men, and friends of men, with whom Shake- 
speare spake, were charged with nefarious political 
designs against the king's prerogative within the 
realm of Britain itself. The king was warned by 
the Spanish ambassador that "though they might 
have a fair pretence for their meetings, yet his 
majesty would find in the end that the Virginia 
Court in London would prove a seminary for a 
seditious parliament." Count Gondomar told truth. 
Selden, Sandys, Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., Sir Dudley 
Digges, Hoskins and Martin, Neville, Brooke, 
Phillips, and others interested in the company repre- 
sented the party of reform in Parliament. South- 
ampton represented it in the Privy Council. It 
was Digges (the brother of Shakespeare's Leonard) 
who, with Eliot and Pym, impeached the Duke of 
Buckingham before the bar of the House of Lords 
in 1626. It was Selden (the friend of Shakespeare's 
Brooke) who instigated the memorable Protest of 
1 62 1 on the rights and privileges of the Commons; 
and in 1628 moved and helped to carry through the 
House the Petition of Right. In the Virginia Com- 
pany were the forerunners, nay, the confederates 
of the Hampdens, Strodes and Cromwells who were 
to bring the son of James to the scaffold and establish 



Sir Edwin Sandys 91 

constitutional government in England. In the Vir- 
ginia Company, these men and their fellow-patriots 
were already, by the charters of 1609-18, the found- 
ers of representative government in Virginia; and 
by the charter of 1620, of representative govern- 
ment in New England, as well. 

But the most indefatigable of the founders was Sir 
Edwin Sandys. "An almost ideal administrator," as 
Professor Osgood has called him, it was during his 
supremacy in the Virginia Council that the seeds 
were sown of the liberties of America. He supported 
Gates and Dale in the suppression of faction, fraud, 
and idleness. He devoted himself to the extinction 
of communistic proprietorship, to the proper develop- 
ment of the public lands and the encouragement at 
the same time of private plantations. He strove to 
keep out the dissolute with whom King James would 
flood the colony, and to people it instead with self- 
respecting and Industrious farmers and artisans. 
He set himself to diversify the industries of Virginia, 
to make provision for the maintenance of religious 
worship and instruction, and to endow a college for 
the colony. He prepared the way for an adminis- 
trative organization and a political system. He was 
the heart of that group of statesmen, Southampton, 
Brooke, Selden, Sackville, and the Ferrars, who 
originated and made effective the "great charter" 
of 161 8, and who thus conferred an equal, uniform, 
and free government upon the colony.^ It was 

* H. L. Osgood, Am. Col., Seventeenth Century, 80-91. Neill, 



92 The Leader of the Liberal Movement — 

during his administration that the first representa- 
tive assembly of Virginia met. No wonder that in the 
spring of the next year, 162 1, the Spanish ambassador 
should tell James I "it was time for him to look to the 
Virginia Courts which were kept at the Ferrars' 
house, where too many of his nobility and gentry 
resorted to accompany the popular Lord Southamp- 
ton and the dangerous Sandys." Behind Southamp- 
ton Sandys was the moving force when, in August of 
that year, the Virginia Court drew up an ordinance 
and constitution for the colony, the intent of which 
was "by the divine assistance to settle in Virginia 
such a form of government as may be to the greatest 
benefit and comfort of the people, and whereby all 
injustice, grievances, and oppression may be pre- 
vented and kept off as much as possible from the said 
colony." And when, soon afterwards, a conspiracy 
was hatched by the Earl of Warwick, Captain Bar- 
grave, and others of the Court party to annul the 
free charters, and the king had placed the leaders of 
the Patriot party-under arrest, it was against Sandys 
that the animus was directed. "By his long ac- 
quaintance with Sandys and his wayes," said Bar- 
grave, "he was induced verilie to believe that there 
was not any man in the world that carried a more 
malitious heart to the government of a Monarchie, 
than Sir Edwin Sandys did; that he had moved the 
Archbishop of Canterbury to give leave to the 

Va. Co. of London, 137-8; Brown, First Republic in America, 
291. 



Sir Edwin Sandys 93 

Brownists and Separatists to go to Virginia, and that 
Sandys had told him his purpose was to erect a free 
popular state there, himself and his assured friends to 
be leaders, and that he was the means of sending the 
charter into Virginia, In which is a clause that the 
Inhabitants should have no government putt upon 
them but by their own consente." ^ In spite of what 
King James did in 1624, with the help of Warwick, 
Lionel Cranfield, Sir Thomas Smith and the rest of 
the reactionaries, to rob the colony of its political 
rights and to destroy all evidence of the liberal pur- 
pose and achievement of the Virginia Corporation, 
the political principles that Inspired Sandys, South- 
ampton, Selden, Brooke, Sackvllle, Cavendish, the 
Ferrars, and all that noble company, never died out 
of Virginia, never died out of the northern colony, 
called New England. These were principles first 
logically developed and clearly formulated by the 
tutor of Sir Edwin Sandys, Richard Hooker. Disci- 
ples of Hooker, associates of Shakespeare, were the 
founders of the first republics In the New World. 
Sir Edwin was not the only member of the Sandys 
family Interested In Virginia. His older brother. Sir 
Samuel, a friend and abettor of Elder Brewster, was 
member of the Council for Virginia in 161 2 and 
stood by Edwin in the company and in Parliament. 
Their youngest brother, George, joined the com- 
pany in 161 2, was treasurer of the colony in Virginia 
in 162 1 and member of the council there for several 
I ^ Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., 37, 41, 47, 209; Genesis, II, 993. 



94 Richard Hooker, and the 

years. It was in Virginia that he completed his 
classic translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The 
reader may be interested to learn, moreover, that the 
families of Sandys and Washington were connected. 
Samuel Sandys, a grandson of Sir Samuel, married 
Elizabeth Washington, widow of an ancestral kins- 
man of George Washington; and another nephew of 
Sir Edwin's, Robert Sandys, married Alice Washing- 
ton of Sulgrave, a great-great-aunt of our first Pres- 
ident. Robert's father, by the way — and this for the 
snapper up of unconsidered trifles — was godson and 
namesake of Shakespeare's "Justice Shallow," Sir 
Thomas Lucy of Charlecote.* 

1 For these items and the Sandys genealogy, see Genesis U. S., 
II, 993-995- 



Principles of American Liberty 95 



CHAPTER V 

RICHARD HOOKER, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN 
LIBERTY 

In Sandys and Shakespeare we recognize the 
religious ideal of freedom tempered by reverence, the 
political ideal of liberty regulated by law and con- 
served by delegated authority, the moderation, 
tolerance of divergent opinion, the broad and sympa- 
thetic confidence in progress rather than in rigidity 
or finality, that are characteristic of the most phil- 
osophical writer upon politics, the broadest minded, 
most learned, and most eloquent divine of sixteenth- 
century England. That not only Sandys and his 
co-founders of colonial liberty, but also their suc- 
cessors, the initiators of the American Revolution, 
owe the central concepts of their political philosophy 
to Richard Hooker is not difficult to show. That the 
political concept of Shakespeare's Richard H (1595- 
1597), and of his later plays in so far as reference is 
made to the relation of ruler and ruled, is directly 
influenced by Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity may be 
impossible of proof; but that a vivid consimility of 
thought, not only political, but moral and psy- 
chological, obtains, may I think be shown beyond 
peradventure. In the present chapter we shall con- 



96 Richard Hooker, and the 

sider the influence of Hooker upon the thought of his 
political contemporaries and their successors in 
America. 

Born in Exeter in 1553, Richard Hooker was of a 
family by no means without honor in provincial 
affairs, in law, and in letters. His great-grandfather 
had been mayor of Exeter, and through several 
reigns he was member of Parliament. His grand- 
father, too, had been mayor of that city. His father's 
brother, John, chamberlain of Exeter, was not only a 
member of Parliament and of reputation at the bar, 
but a learned antiquary. Editor-in-chief of the 
1586-7 issue of Holinshed's Chronicles, he con- 
tributed several augmentations to that monumental 
work; and of some of these Shakespeare makes use. 
With pecuniary assistance from this uncle and 
through his influence with Bishop Jewell, young 
Hooker was enabled in 1568 to enter Corpus Christi 
College, Oxford, with a clerkship. By the kindly 
interest of Jewell he was brought to the knowledge of 
Bishop Sandys, afterwards Archbishop of York. 
There resulted the tutorship, beginning in 1573, of 
the Archbishop's son, Edwin, then twelve or thirteen 
years of age, and of young Cranmer, grand-nephew 
of the martyr. "Between Mr. Hooker and these 
his two pupils, there was a sacred friendship," writes 
Walton, "a friendship made up of religious princi- 
ples, which increased daily by a similitude of in- 
clinations to the same recreations and studies; a 
friendship elemented in youth, and in an university 



Principles of American Liberty 97 

free from self-ends, which the friendships of age 
usually are not: and in this sweet, this blessed, this 
spiritual amity, they went on for many years." 
When they left college Hooker continued with his 
studies, "still enriching his quiet and capacious soul 
with the precious learning of the philosophers, 
casuists, and schoolmen; and with them the founda- 
tion and reason of all laws, both sacred and civil." 
As fellow of his college and lecturer in Logic and in 
Hebrew he gained wide and honorable recognition. 
In 1585, upon recommendation of his old patron. 
Archbishop Sandys, and others, he was appointed 
Master of the Temple in London. There his views, 
already pronounced, in opposition to the "disci- 
pline" of the Puritans as to public worship, plunged 
him into controversy with the leaders of the Presby- 
terian party, and impelled him to the composition 
of a treatise in justification "of the Laws of Eccle- 
siastical Polity." For the completion of this treatise 
he retired in 1591 to the country vicarage of Bos- 
combe; and in 1592 the first four books were entered 
at Stationers' Hall. They were not published, how- 
ever, till 1594. The fifth followed in 1597. The re- 
maining three books, published in part from his 
manuscripts, did not appear till long after the year of 
his death — 1600. The portions of the Polity which 
especially engage our attention are the Preface (to 
the reformers of church discipline), the first book, and 
a few sections of the second. These divisions estab- 
lish the basis of ecclesiastical laws in "law in general, 



'98 Richard Hooker^ and the 

both human and divine," outline the political theory 
of which the influence is clear in Sandys and the 
patriots of the Virginia Council, and enunciate prin- 
ciples, political and philosophical, to which there is a 
strikingly remarkable resemblance in various ut- 
terances of Shakespeare. No reader or thinker of the 
day could, indeed, have escaped the influence of 
Hooker. For, though not an innovator, he was a 
builder; his treatise "is the first independent work 
in English prose of notable power and genius, and 
the vigor and grasp of its thoughts are not more 
remarkable than the felicity of its literary style." ^ 
Said King James, in one of his intervals of illumina- 
tion, "Though many others write well, yet in the 
next age they will be forgotten; but doubtless there 
is in every page of Mr. Hooker's book the picture of a 
divine soul, such pictures of Truth and Reason, and 
drawn in so sacred colours, that they shall never 
fade, but give an immortal memory to the author." 
And Pope Clement VHI bears witness: "There is no 
learning that this man hath not searched into; noth- 
ing too hard for his understanding; this man indeed 
deserves the name of an author; his books will get 
reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of 
eternity, that if the rest be like this, they shall last 
till the last fire shall consume all learning." ^ 

That Sandys's theory of government by popular 

^ T. F. Henderson, Art., Richard Hooker, Encyc. Brit. 
2 Hooker's Works (ed. Keble), I, 71-72, Walton's Life of 
Hooker. 



Principles of American Liberty 99 

consent, and the underlying political philosophy 
which, through the efforts of the Patriot party in 
the Virginia Company, became concrete in the 
earliest representative governments of America, 
drew their immediate inspiration from Richard 
Hooker will be apparent to anyone who reads some 
fifteen pages In sections eight to ten of the first book 
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and half a 
dozen pages on either side. It will also be apparent 
that the same concepts underlie the contention and 
the language of the fathers of American independ- 
ence. For our present purpose a few excerpts ar- 
ranged under appropriate headings, with occasional 
italicizing of lines whose import passed, even though 
by unconscious process, into the mind of our Revolu- 
tionary forefathers and into the Declaration of In- 
dependence, will suffice.^ 

I. Equality under the Law of Human Nature or 
Reason. — "God therefore Is a law both to himself," 
says Hooker, "and to all other things beside. . . . 
Who the guide of nature hut only the God of nature? . . . 
The general and perpetual voice of men is as the 
sentence of God himself. For that which all men 
have at all times learned. Nature herself must needs 
have taught; and God being the author of Nature, 
her voice is but his instrument.^ . . . Those things 
which are equal must needs all have one meas- 

^ The most accessible edition is Ronald Bayne's in Everyman's 
Library, no. 201. To that the references that follow are made. 
2 Polity, 152, 159, 176. 



loo Richard Hooker, and the 

ure. . . . From which relation of equality between 
ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several 
rules and canons natural Reason hath drawn for 
direction of life no man Is Ignorant.^ . . . We see 
then how nature itself teacheth laws and statutes 
to live by. The laws which have been hitherto 
mentioned [of natural Reason] do bind men ab- 
solutely even as they are men, although they have 
never any settled fellowship, never any solemn 
argument amongst themselves what to do or not to 
do." ^ And there is "no impossibility in nature 
considered by itself, but that men might have lived 
without any public regiment." ^ In other words, 
the state of nature though not yet political Is not 
lawless; It Is social: the vox perpetua populi is the vox 
Dei; reason and equality prevail, and, save for the 
presupposition of corruption, peace might also reign. 
2. The Social Compact and the Body Politic. — 
"But forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient 
to furnish ourselves with competent store of things 
needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a 
life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply 
those defects and Imperfections which are In us 
living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally 
induced to seek communion and fellowship with 
others. This was the cause of men's uniting them- 
selves at the first in politic Societies, which societies 

1 Polity, 1 80. 

2 Polity, 188; so also paragraphs 2 and 3, following. 
' Polity, 191. 



Principles of American Liberty loi 

could not be without Government^ nor Government 
without a distinct kind of Law from that which hath 
been already declared. Two foundations there are 
which bear up public societies: the one, a natural 
incHnation, whereby all men desire sociable life and 
fellowship, the other, an order expressly or secretly 
agreed upon touching the manner of their union in 
living together. The latter is that which we call the 
Law of a Commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, 
the parts whereof are by law animated, held together 
and set at work in such actions as the common good 
requireth.'' 

3. The Transition to Positive Law; the Pursuit 
of Happiness. — "Laws politic, ordained for eternal 
order and regiment amongst men are never framed 
as they should be, unless presuming the will of man 
to be Inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse 
from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature; 
in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of 
his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, 
they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so 
to frame his outward actions, that they be no hin- 
drance unto the common good for which societies 
are Instituted; unless they do this they are not 
perfect. . . . All men desire to lead In this world 
a happy life. That life is led most happily wherein 
all virtue is exercised without impediment or let. . . , 

4. Government by Consent of the Governed. — 
"To take away all such mutual grievances. Injuries 
and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing 



I02 Richard Hooker, and the 

into composition and agreement amongst themselves, 
hy ordaining some kind of government public, and 
by yielding themselves subject thereunto; that unto 
whom they granted authority to rule and govern, hy 
them the peace, tranquillity and happy estate of the 
rest might he procured." Men always knew that 
they might defend themselves and their own com- 
modity against force and injury; and that no man 
might in reason determine and assert, partial to 
himself, his own right; and, therefore, that "strifes 
and troubles would be endless, except they gave their 
common consent all to he ordered hy some whom they 
should agree upon; without which consent there were 
no reason that one man should take upon him to he 
lord or judge over another; because, although there 
be according to the opinion of some very great and 
judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, 
wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of 
servile disposition; nevertheless for the manifesta- 
tion of this their right, and men's more peaceable 
contentment on both sides, the assent of them also 
who are to he governed seemeth necessary" Hooker 
then derives, as did Aristotle, the institution of 
kingship from the analogy of fatherhood in private 
families. But of kings as the first kind of governors, 
he remarks — "not having the natural superiority 
of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, 
and then unlawful; or, If lawful, then either granted 
or consented unto by them over whom they exercise 
the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, 



Principles of American Liberty 103 

unto whom all the world Is subject." That, how- 
ever, he more than questions the validity of the 
extraordinary or supernatural derivation of power 
is Indicated by the stringency of the test to which 
he always subjects it, "by consent of men or im- 
mediate appointment of God." And In his conclusion 
the latter alternative seems utterly to vanish: "How- 
belt not this [the kingship] the only kind of regi- 
ment that hath been received In the world. The 
inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry 
other to be devised. So that In a word all public 
regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have 
risen from deliberate advice^ consultation and com- 
position between men^ judging It convenient and 
behoveful; there being no Impossibility In nature 
considered by Itself [I. e., before Its corruption], but 
that men might have lived without any public 
regiment. . . ." ^ 

5. Tyranny Indefensible; Arlstodemocracy. — "The 
case of man's nature standing therefore as It doth, 
some kind of regiment the Law of Nature doth re- 
quire; yet the kinds thereof being many, Nature 
tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a 
thing arbitrary. At first ... it may be that noth- 
ing was further thought upon for the manner of 
governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom 
which were to rule, till by experience men found 
this for all parts very Inconvenient. . . . They saw 
that to live by one man^s will became the cause of all 
1 Polity, 190-191. 



I04 Richard Hooker^ and the 

men's misery. This constrained them to come unto 
laws, wherein all men might see their duties before- 
hand, and know the penalties of transgressing 
them.^ . . . Laws do not only teach what is good, 
but they enjoin it, they have in them a certain con- 
straining force. . . . Most requisite therefore it is 
that to devise laws which all men shall he forced to obey 
none hut wise men he admitted. Laws are matters of 
principal consequence; men of common capacity 
and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how 
should they?) to discern what things are fittest for 
each kind and state of regiment. . . . Even they 
which brook it worst that men should tell them of 
their duties, when they are told the same by a law, 
think very well and reasonably of it. For why."* 
They presume that the law doth speak with all indif- 
Jerency; that the law hath no side-respect to their per- 
sons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeding 
from wisdom and understanding.^ . . . By the nat- 
ural law whereunto God hath made all subject, 
the lawful power of making laws to command whole 
politic societies of men helongeth so properly unto the 
same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate 
of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same 
of himself, and not either by express commission 
immediately and personally received from God 
[Imagine the smile with which Hooker regards that 
burden of proof!], or else hy authority derived at the 

1 Polity, 191-192. 

2 Polity, 193. 



Principles of American Liberty 105 

first from their consent upon whose persons they impose 
the laws J it is no better than mere tyranny ^ ^ 

6. Representative Government. — "Laws they are 
not therefore which public approbation hath not 
made so. But approbation not only they give who 
personally declare their assent by voice, sign, or 
act, but also when others do it in their names by 
right originally at the least derived from them. As 
in parliaments, councils^ and the like assemblies, al- 
though we be not personally ourselves present, notwith- 
standing our assent is by reason of other agents there 
in our behalf. . . . Laws therefore human, of what 
kind soever, are available by consent." 

As for the filling of offices the following is signifi- 
cant not only as an instance of somewhat amusing 
practical wisdom but as indication of the author's 
reverence for the principle of degree dependent upon 
merit In the administration of a democratic common- 
wealth: "Where the multitude beareth sway, laws 
that shall tend unto preservation of that state must 
make common smaller offices to go by lot, for fear 
of strife and division likely to arise; by reason that 
ordinary qualities sufficing for discharge of such 
offices, they could not but by many be desired; . . . 
at an uncertain lot none can find themselves grieved, 
on whomsoever it lighteth. Contrariwise the greatest, 
whereof but few are capable, to pass by popular election, 
that neither the people may envy such as have those 
honors, Inasmuch as themselves bestow them, and 
1 Polity, 194. 



lo6 Richard Hooker, and the 

that the chiefest may be kindled with desire to exer- 
cise all parts of rare and beneficial virtue, knowing 
they shall not lose their labor by growing in fame 
and estimation amongst the people: if the helm of 
government he in the hands of a few of the wealthiest, 
that then laws providing for continuance thereof must 
make punishment of contumely and wrong offered 
unto any of the common sort sharp and grievous.^' ^ 

As for monarchies, especially the English mon- 
archy and the power of supreme jurisdiction there, 
let the reader turn to the eighth book of the Polity — : 
not printed before the author's death in 1600, but 
undoubtedly known to Sandys and Cranmer, South- 
ampton and his associates — and there he will find, 
"The axioms of our regal government are these lex 
facit regem . . . and rex nihil potest nisi quod jure 
potest.''^ The law commands the king. 

7. The Right of Revolution. — "Laws therefore 
human," as Hooker has said above, "of what kind 
soever, are available by consent." That is to say 
laws positive, which vary according to external 
necessity and expediency. Under such positive laws 
are Included all the forms of government, and the 
forms are therefore alterable according to circum- 
stances. Laws natural, on the other hand are ^^ eternal 
and immutable. . . . But men naturally have no 
full and perfect power to command whole politic 
multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our 
consent we could in such sort be at no man's com- 
1 Polity, 194-196. 



Principles of American Liberty 107 

mandment living. And to be commanded we do 
consent, when that society whereof we are part 
hath at any time before consented, without re- 
voking the same after by the like universal agree- 
ment." ^ . . . And again, "The public power of 
all societies is above every soul contained in the 
same societies. And the principal use of that power 
is to give laws unto all that are under It; which laws 
in such case we must obey, unless there be reason showed 
which may necessarily enforce that the law of Reason 
or of God doth enjoin the contrary.''^ ^ In other words 
the right to alter the form of government resides 
In the society which by consent set up the govern- 
ment and publicly approved the laws by which that 
government should rule. 

The rationalistic doctrines of Hooker "were to 
become soon the most effective weapons in the 
arsenal of those who were assailing the church and 
the throne." ^ In them we find not only the germ 
of Sandys's speeches of 1606 and 1614 in Parliament, 
of his denunciation of divine right, his insistence 
upon the elective basis of authoritative power, the 
consent of the governed, the rational and popular 
sources of law, Its binding force upon king as well 
as subject, the natural and moral justification of 
revolution against tyranny; but also the definite 

1 Polity, 194. 

2 Polity, 228. 

' Wm. A Dunning, Political Theories from Luther to Montes- 
quieu, 210. 



io8 Richard Hooker, and the 

principles underlying the charters of steadily in- 
creasing liberality achieved by Sandys and his fellow 
patriots for our forefathers in the American colonies. 
We have here the formulated concept and some- 
times even the verbal basis of the most pregnant 
utterances of the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and the rationale of certain provisions in 
the Constitution. Hooker's phrases have lived on 
to us because of their grave and humble majesty. 
His argument has lived on to us because in the long 
struggle for English freedom that began in his day 
and ended with his disciple, John Locke, In the 
Revolution of 1688, it was the accepted philosophical 
justification of the civil rights and liberties, the due 
process of law, and the prerogative of the Commons, 
extorted in the thirteenth century by Magna Charta, 
and reasserted in the fourteenth under Edward HI. 
The accountability of king to people and their 
right to withdraw power from a tyrant had indeed, 
even earlier, been enunciated by Wyclif in the reign 
of Richard H. The origin of kingly power in the 
consent of the people had been latent In the fifteenth 
century De Laudibus Legum of Fortescue. He 
derived from God "the Law of Nature, to which 
civil laws are only auxiliary," and for him, the king's 
power was not absolute, but limited by the law. 
The Utopia of Sir Thomas More had In 15 16 not 
only "assigned the sovereignty to the people" but 
had assumed "that society might be conceived in 
some radically different form." By Bishop Ponet 



Principles of American Liberty 109 

in 1536, though for him as for Aristotle the State 
is not the outcome of convention but itself a natural 
and necessary institution, the right of revolution 
had been asserted — and even that of tyrannicide. 
By Sir Thomas Smith, in The English Common- 
wealth of 1583, the omnipotence of Parliament had 
been laboriously expounded. Meanwhile in Scot- 
land, the national sentiment that the king holds 
from the people the right to rule and that, if he rules 
unworthily, the people may depose him, had been 
expressed by John Major as early as 1521; and more 
explicitly and vehemently by his pupils, Knox and 
Buchanan: the former in the outline of his Second 
Blast, about 1559, and the latter in De Jure Regni, 
1579. By Buchanan indeed the fundamental prem- 
ises of Hooker had been anticipated, for he finds the 
origin of community in the instinct of nature, and 
the succeeding origin of the State in "the discords 
of men, which made it necessary to choose a king." 
The king's authority, moreover, he derives from 
the law: the king is not absolute, and if wicked he 
should be cut off.^ 

But it was by Hooker that the philosophical se- 
quence of the social compact, now abandoned by 
political thinkers, but in its age and for its purpose 
most efficient, was first logically developed. Here 

^ See Sir Frederick Pollock, History of the Science of Politics, 
Humboldt Library, No. 42, pp. 22, 26; and G. P. Gooch, The 
History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, 32, 34, 42, 47. 



no Richard Hooker, and the 

first we have the full process of argument: the "state 
of nature" in which men are in a "relation of equal- 
ity," governed by the "law of nature" which is the 
law of the "God of nature", — a "law eternal and 
immutable" under which men are capable of en- 
joying their natural rights of "peace, tranquillity, 
and happy estate;" man inwardly averse to the 
"sacred laws of his nature," and falling into strife; 
the institution of government and of positive law, 
with the transition to civil society for the mainte- 
nance of these rights. It is with Hooker that the 
original contract between king and people first takes 
distinct shape; that the origin of government is in 
express terms referred to "deliberate advice, con- 
sultation, and composition between men;" its just 
powers derived from "common consent all to be 
governed by some whom they should agree upon — 
without which consent there were no reason that 
one man should take upon him to be lord or judge 
over another;" its laws positive declared to be of 
public approbation and of force with monarch as 
well as subject; under such positive laws, "all the 
forms of government Included, and the forms there- 
fore alterable according to circumstances." In 
Hooker we find the constant implication, if not 
enunciation, that in the people is vested this right 
of altering the government when the government 
"is no better than mere tyranny;" in Hooker, too, 
the justification of "other kinds of regiment less 
inconvenient than kingship:" of the commonwealth 



Principles of American Liberty iii 

"where the multitude beareth sway" — of repre- 
sentative government and popular election. And 
in Hooker we find the insistence upon choice of 
officials not for birth or station, or by privilege 
royally bestowed, but for "degree" of merit and 
peculiar fitness. This is the order of degree con- 
sistently emphasized by his contemporary, Shake- 
speare — the order consistently advocated by Hook- 
er's followers In political philosophy, Harrington, 
Algernon Sidney, and Locke. It Is the aristodemoc- 
racy of Washington, Hamilton, and John Adams — 
"the aristocracy," nobly phrased by Jefferson, "of 
virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided 
for the direction of the interests of society, and 
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions," 
an aristocracy deemed essential to a well-ordered 
republic.^ 

Through the colonial charters achieved by Hook- 
er's parliamentary disciples and Shakespeare's pa- 
triot friends of the Virginia Company, through the 
Petition of Right, through the Convention of Janu- 
ary, 1689, with its solemn assertion of the "original 
contract between king and people," through the 
succeeding Bill of Rights, and immediately through 
John Locke's Treatise of Civil Government, Hooker's 
political conceptions found their way into the mind 
and speech of James Otis, Franklin, Patrick Henry, 
Samuel and John Adams, of Jefferson — and so Into 
the Declaration of Independence. I said, immedi- 
1 Jefferson's Writings (Autobiography), I, 36. Ed. 1853. 



112 Richard Hooker, and the 

ately, through John Locke; for his Treatise of 1690 
was profoundly and widely studied by the fathers 
of the American Revolution, and is confessedly a 
reasoned elaboration of Hooker's ideas of civil polity. 
The extent of the indebtedness of Locke has been 
frequently overlooked, and his fundamental doctrine 
traced to other sources. For instance to Grotlus. 
But Grotius was only seventeen years of age, and 
had written nothing upon law, when Hooker died. 
It was no doctrine first formulated at a later date 
by the Dutch jurist and founder of international 
law that Locke was espousing when he "declared 
the law of nature to be a determining body of rules 
for the conduct of men In their natural condition," 
or when he maintained that "under this law, of 
which reason is the Interpreter, equality Is the funda- 
mental fact in men's relations to one another." Nor 
was it on a foundation first laid by Grotlus that 
"Locke constructed his doctrine as to the natural 
rights which belong to every man In the pre-polltical 
state." Locke's conception of the state of nature 
as a pre-polItlcal rather than a pre-soclal condition, 
a state In which peace and reason and equality pre- 
vail, is derived directly from Richard Hooker. In 
fact Grotlus himself was influenced by Hooker. 
Hooker's conception and exposition of natural law 
place him In the group of Protestant thinkers who 
opened the way for Grotlus.^ 

^ Dunning, The Political Philosophy of John Locke, in Pol. 
Sci. Quart., XX, 230; and his Political Theories from Luther to 
Montesquieu, 210. 



Principles of American Liberty 113 

As Hooker thought, so Locke. And the Declara- 
tion of Independence echoes the sentiment and 
phrase of both: "To assume . . . the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of 
nature's God entitle them. . . . We hold these 
truths to be self evident: that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these 
rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed; that whenever any form of government 
becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of 
the people to alter or abolish it. . . . Governments 
long established should not be changed for light 
and transient causes. . . . But when a long train 
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the 
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under 
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty 
to throw off such government, and to provide new 
guards for their future security." The cardinal 
doctrines are in direct descent from Hooker's enun- 
ciation of them. 

Jefferson was right when he said that "the ball 
of the Revolution received its first impulse, not 
from the actors in the event, but from the first 
colonists." He might well have added: "and from 
the Jacobean protagonists of colonial rights, their 
brothers in England; from the word oft reiterated 
in Parliament by Sandys and Selden and Brooke, 



114 Shakespeare* s Views of the 

by Phillips, Neville, Sackville, and Digges; from the 
motive and deed of Southampton and Cavendish 
and the other Patriots of the Virginia Company; 
and from their instructor in the principles of equal 
opportunity, self-government, justice, and liberty — 
the Elizabethan Greatheart of the Anglican Church, 
the most judicious political philosopher of the Shake- 
spearian age, the friend of Shakespeare's friends — 
Richard Hooker." 



Individual in Relation to the State 115 



CHAPTER VI 

Shakespeare's views of the individual in rela- 
tion TO THE state 

These being the political views of the philosopher 
who most influenced the founders and the reasserters 
of American freedom, what were those of the su- 
preme dramatist of Hooker's day? That Shakespeare 
was acquainted with more than one of the so-called 
"patriots" of the latter years of Queen Elizabeth, 
and friendly with others who joined the survivors 
of that Essex uprising and devoted themselves, 
under the leadership of Sandys and Southampton, 
to measures of constitutional reform during the 
reign of King James, we have already seen. We 
have seen also that several of these friends and ac- 
quaintances of Shakespeare were foremost in the 
liberal movement instituted by the Virginia Council 
for the government of the young plantation; and 
that the poet was not ordinarily informed, but con- 
fidentially, of their affairs, and of the disasters and 
political difficulties that well nigh wrecked their 
purposes. With such knowledge on our part as a 
background we may profitably examine the poet's 
utterances for some indication of his views con- 
cerning political matters, and of the moral and social 
principles underlying. Is there in his poems any 



ii6 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

such indication? If he took to heart at all the reali- 
ties of life we should expect to find somewhere in 
the poems some revelation of his measure of man 
as a moral and social individual. If "the end" of 
playing is, indeed, "to hold as 'twere, the mirror 
up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn 
her own image, and the very age and body of the 
time his form and pressure," we should expect to 
find In Shakespeare's plays something of that con- 
temporary form and pressure; some index of his 
discrimination between virtue and vice, between 
the essential and ephemeral in matters moral and 
social and in the political movements of his period. 
"Shakespeare was like putty," says Professor 
Mackail,^ quoting from "a forgotten artist of the 
last century — 'Shakespeare was like putty to 
everybody and everything: the willing slave, pulled 
out, patted down, squeezed anyhow, clay to every 
potter. But he knew by the plastic hand what the 
nature of the moulder was.'" The words rankle; 
and so too, perhaps. Professor Mackail's approba- 
tion of them — "Startling clearness In four words: 
'Shakespeare was like putty.'" There are half- 
truths startling and delusive, and epigrams at once 
brilliant and opaque. Shakespeare would have 
smiled. Has not Hamlet forestalled the comparison 
and Its Inevitable even If unintended Innuendo In 
his dictum of the end of playing.? To show "the 
very age and body of the time his form and pressure" 
^ Shakespeare after Three Hundred Years, 8, 9. 



Individual in Relation to the State 117 

implies a something more than the passivity of 
"clay to every potter." It Implies a discrimination 
between the sham and the substance, between the 
evanescent and the durable, between the mass and 
the meaning. It Implies more than submission to 
every "plastic hand:" It Implies discrimination 
between botcher and fashioner. It Implies more 
than a knowledge of "the nature of the moulder:" 
it Implies an ability "to show" what Is moulded. 
It Implies, above all, the creative power of sublima- 
tion: virtue custom-blurred resumes her radiant and 
immortal feature; scorn shrivels before the image 
of her vice. The difference between putty and 
poetry Is one of Insight, choice, creativity: that Is 
to say, of truth, worth and beauty. "Shakespeare's 
preeminence," as Sir Sidney Lee has said, "resides 
in his catholic sensitiveness to external impressions, 
and In his power of transmuting them In the crucible 
of his mind Into something richer and rarer than 
they were before." ^ In the transmutation is the 
revelation not only of their truth, but of their sig- 
nificance both for Shakespeare and for us. May 
we not, without prejudicing the Issue by any effort, 
here, at tracing the poet's Indebtedness to anyone, 
aim to discover what Shakespeare regarded as true 
and significant concerning the worth of life, es- 
pecially in the social and political relation of the 
individual to the state? The reader who has fa- 
miliarized himself with the thought of Hooker and 
* Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance, 17. 



Ii8 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

his school may judge whether Shakespeare's way of 
thinking is of that school if he please. Whether 
there is definite resemblance between the poet and 
the divine we shall consider in the next chapter. 
The main thing here is to sift out from what is the 
merely conventional or dramatic utterance of the 
poet that which is so spontaneous and so variously 
repeated that it cannot but represent his personal 
conviction, his heart. 

If we had of Shakespeare no residue but his 
Sonnets, we should know something of his view of 
life. If there were no survival but the sixty-sixth 
of the collection, we should know what values he 
most highly prized. For, in that sonnet, neither a 
mere literary exercise nor an utterance of mechanical 
adulation, he enumerates the phenomena that he 
most deplores: 

Tired with all these for restful death I cry, — 

As to behold desert a beggar born, 

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, 

And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, 

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced. 

And strength by limping sway disabled, 

And art made tongue-tied by authority, 

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, 

And simple truth miscalled simplicity, 

And captive good attending captain ill; — 

Tired with all these, from these I would be gone. 

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. 



i|^ Individual in Relation to the State 119 

With these aspects of contemporary life Shake- 
speare is tired. From his disapprobation we learn 
what things make life for him worth living. They 
are the recognition of merit, Irrespective of birth 
or wealth, merit "trimmed In jollity;" the establish- 
ment — In the seats of authority — of honor, right 
perfection, and the strength that makes for national 
welfare; freedom of art and speech; the triumph of 
science over fatuity and pedantry; the conservation 
of faith and the sacredness of virtue; reverence for 
truth; goodness controlling evil; and love that, if 
all the rest were dead, might still make life worth 
while. 

It Is, Indeed, more than probable that some of 
Shakespeare's sonnets were exercises of skill, and 
some, products of conventional adulation. I, for 
one, hold that all are not to be explained by either 
premise. With regard to many of them, Words- 
worth's judgment cannot be gainsaid; In these 
"Shakespeare expresses his own feelings in his own 
person." In others, even though conventional, we 
find Shakespeare rephrasing positively or negatively 
one and another of his articles of faith, especially 
his faith in the worth of spontaneity, of ungllded 
merit, of truth, of constancy, of virtue, — 

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, 
Though to itself it only live and die; 
But if that flower with base infection meet, 
The basest weed outbraves his dignity; 



I20 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

his faith In the glory of independence, independence 
of popular acclaim or of largess showering from the 
stars, — 

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread 
But as the marigold at the sun's eye; 
And in themselves their pride lies buried, 
For at a frown they in their glory die. 
The painful warrior famoused for fight, 
After a thousand victories once foil'd, 
Is from the book of honour razed quite 
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd. 

Shall we shrug the shoulder, saying these are but 
the commonplaces of a contemporary mode, — these 
and the passionate asseverations of the ecstasy, 
solace, abiding presence and sufficiency of love, the 
tender ideality of self-abnegation in life or death? 
Is there no genuineness of personal conviction in 
the poet's worship of youth and beauty and of the 
truth that is the vital breath of both? and in the 
pathos dear to him of their brevity and swift decay? 
Is there no poignancy of actual experience in the 
recurrent theme of frailty, the insufficiency of the 
lust of the flesh, the confession of his own weakness, 
and the challenge to his "poor soul?" — 

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth . . . 
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; 
Within be fed, without be rich no more: 
So shalt thou feed on Death that feeds on men. 
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then. 



Individual in Relation to the State 121 

This unquestioning acceptance of restful Death, 
Death the gentle, the consoling, the healing, is it in 
no wise Shakespeare's own acceptance? 

Shall we, meticulously sceptical, urge that in all 
this there is naught but the echo of contemporary 
fashion, or of the Renaissance Platonism of Italy, 
or of Ronsard, Jodelle, and Desportes in France? 
If so, we must also contend that Sir Philip Sidney, 
who, in his passionate praise of "Stella," lifted many 
a thought and line from the sonneteers of Italy and 
France, did not love Stella, — his Penelope Devereux 
of girlhood, his Lady Rich of married life. But we 
know that he did love her, and that consumedly. 
And because Michael Drayton borrowed from the 
sonnet-sequence of Claude de Pontoux the very 
name under which he worshipped his "soul-shrined 
saint," and because he gathered from Ronsard and 
Desportes flower and fragrance for poetic tribute 
to her, — the Anne Goodere of his youth, the Lady 
Rainsford of his after years — shall we say that he 
did not love her — love her honorably to the day 
of his death? 

The poet-lover may lean upon convention and 
borrow fantasies from distant sources and sing with 
ancient echoes. He did In Shakespeare's time. He 
did in Burns's time. Consciously or not, he sings his 
love in borrowed strains today. He takes his good 
where he may find It; the gold is none the less his or 
hers when laid at the loved one's feet. And so of 
Shakespeare's attestations of friendship and devo- 



122 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

tion; so also of his attestations of the essentials of 
human worth, in personal intercourse or public life. 
These are Shakespeare, whether they be garbed in 
appropriated phrase and conventional mode or not. 
They are Shakespeare if in his sonnets they are his 
habitual utterance; the more so, if they recur in the 
fundamental view of life presented by his dramas. 
Even though expressed In dramatic character, they 
are Shakespeare when they recur in crises of emo- 
tional emergency, and when the conduct of the drama 
has made clear the universal value to be attached to 
the emotion. They are Shakespeare if they recur 
In the prophetic or chorus-like utterance of super- 
numeraries when the poet does not care to be a 
dramatist. They are Shakespeare if they recur in 
soliloquies and asides not vital to the dramatic 
evolution, or in vital utterances "when the poet 
forgets to be a dramatist" and, as It were subcon- 
sciously, speaks with his own voice. Most unmis- 
takably Is that voice Shakespeare's when the creed 
he utters, or his creatures utter, accords with the 
temper of the poet as attested by those who knew 
him, — by Chettle and Weever, Scoloker, Davles of 
Hereford, Freeman, Hemlnges and Condell, Ben 
Jonson, and many another from 1592 to the day 
of his death and later. To some of those he is 
the poet of love, — "They burn in love, thy children, 
Shakespeare het them." To others, he is "friendly 
Shakespeare," "gentle Shakespeare," "sweet Shake- 
speare," "so worthy a friend and fellow," "so 



Individual in Relation to the State 123 

lovable." "I loved the man," says Jonson, "and do 
honor his memory (on this side idolatry) as much as 
any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free 
nature." To Chettle, "his upright dealing" again, 
"which argues his honesty," appeals, and also "his 
civil demeanor;" to Davies of Hereford, his "hon- 
esty" again, and his "courage," his generosity "of 
mind and mood," his "wit," his kingly quality: 

Thou hadst been a companion for a king; 
And been a king among the meaner sort. 
Some others rail; but rail as they think fit, 
Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit: 
And honesty thou sow'st which they do reap. 

For more than one who knew him his estimate of 
manhood, his appraisal of social honor, of civic duty, 
and of civil polity, as well as his wisdom and skill, 
poetry, passion, originality, are manifest in his 
works, — "Then let thine own works thine own worth 
upraise." "All that he doth write," cries Leonard 
Digges, "Is pure his own" — 

Where Shakespeare lived or spake, Vermin forbear, 

Lest with your froth you spot them, come not near . . . 

Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught Book, 

Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look 

Like old coin'd gold, whose lines in every page 

Shall pass true current to succeeding age. 

For more than Freeman, Digges, and Ben Jonson, In 
those works of Shakespeare does Shakespeare's very 
self appear; 



124 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

Look how the father's face 
Lives in his issue; even so, the race 
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
In his well turned and true filed lines: 
In each of which he seems to shake a lance, 
As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. 

May we not in spite of those who, revolted by the 
uncritical enthusiasm of the eighteenth century and 
the idolatry of the early nineteenth, have proceeded 
to divest the poet of spontaneity, the dramatist of 
personality, after all recognize a man Shakespeare, a 
Shakespeare of unborrowed and unassumed thought 
and passion, and of conviction repeatedly and dis- 
tinctly uttered? Scepticism is not the only hall- 
mark of scholarship, certainly not of constructive 
criticism. The philological and historical critics 
have not been merely destructive: by clearing away 
the underbrush they have enabled us to see the 
trees. 

II 

Shakespeare's ideal of manhood, as prefigured in 
Sonnet 66, reappears and is reinforced throughout 
his plays. The personality revealed in the sonnets, 
and attested by those who spoke with him face to 
face, illumines in clearer detail and broader sweep 
the concrete mortals of his mimic world. From the 
kingdom of vision his creatures step witnessing to his 
"cloudless, boundless human view." Explicitly or 
impliedly, not professed but confessed, his human 



Individual in Relation to the State 125 

view is ours to know. It lives in the serious avowal 
of the souls that he has created sincere — Hamlets, 
Cordelias, Isabellas, Brutuses, Vincentios, Henry 
the Fifths; in the jocose or ironical, and therefore 
inverted, intimation of the Falstaffs, and the in- 
nuendo of jesters, clowns, and fools; in the subacid of 
Beatrice and Rosalind; in the perverted and neg- 
atively Interpretable creed of the Richards, lagos and 
lachimos; in the throe of action and passion, and in 
the cry wrung from the heart of emergency; for 
Shakespeare shaped the emergency, thrilled in the 
throe, pulsed In the heart of his fashioning. 

What, according to Shakespeare's conception, an 
Englishman should be (for in spite of clime or time or 
garb, all his characters are English at heart) Is 
somewhat on this wise: in individual and social 
relations, first and foremost free and Independ- 
ent, — "every man's soul Is his own;" he "bends not 
low" nor speaks "in a bondman's key, with bated 
breath and whispering humbleness;" he Is proud, but 
modest withal, — for "whatever praises Itself but in 
the deed, devours the deed in the praise;" his courage 
is fostered by habit, not commandeered by law; he 
has the dauntless spirit of resolution; In trial he is as 
"one in suffering all, that suffers i.ith^'ng;" in effort 
he has no "traitor doubts" that "make us lose the 
good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." His 
breastplate Is the "heart untainted." 

But Independence avails him little unless he have 
an abiding sense of obligation to the society of which 



126 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

he forms a part. He is a man of "plain and simple 
faith," "armed strong In honesty," "precise In 
promise-keeping," despising deceit — "the seeming 
truth which cunning times put on to entrap the 
wisest," — a man of justice, a man of mercy, a man 
moving In "the perfect ways of honor," a man 
who cares not for ceremony, or that scutcheon of 
honor of which Falstaff talks, that "lives not with 
the living or the dead." The man after Shake- 
speare's heart lives as knowing that "no man is the 
lord of anything till he communicate his parts 
to others;" that "Nature demands both thanks and 
use." 

But neither Independence nor sense of obligation 
profits unless — and here Shakespeare's humanity be- 
comes humanism — unless one be of well-ordered, 
well-rounded composition. "Folly and ignorance are 
the common curse of mankind." But judgment 
alone, "the pale cast of thought," makes cowards of 
us; and Intellect alone breeds cunning and sophistry 
to gloze lust and violence with smiles and scripture 
and artificial tears, to "add colors to the chameleon 
and set the murderous Machiavel to school." And 
the man of Impulse alone — his "blood will be his 
direction to his death:" he is but "passion's slave." 
Shakespeare's man of parts Is capable of independ- 
ence and of service to his fellows, precisely because 
he Is endowed with "large discourse looking before 
and after" and "God-like reason," and conscience; 
and because he is blessed with "blood and judgment 



Individual in Relation to the State 127 

so well commingled" that he is "not a pipe for For- 
tune's finger to sound what stop she please." 

Ill 

This being somewhat Shakespeare's ideal of man- 
hood in its individual and social relations, what is 
his thought, implicit or expressed, of the relation of 
the individual to the state? 

Shakespeare was not a prophet, if by prophet we 
mean one who foresees and foretells the future. If, 
however, by "prophet" we mean one who inter- 
prets aright the conditions of the time, "completely 
embodying the present in which the future is con- 
tained," perceiving in the Ygdrasil of history not 
merely the branches of good and evil, but the po- 
tencies sure to leaf, sure to bud and flower and seed, — 
if that is what we mean, then Shakespeare was a 
prophet: a seer, an instinctive sage, an unprofessed 
political philosopher, of observation, of reflection, of 
common sense. As In his religious outlook there is — 
to avail ourselves of Carlyle — "no narrow supersti- 
tion, harsh asceticism, intolerance, fanatical fierce- 
ness, or perversion;" but yet "a Revelation, so far 
as it goes," of the "thousand-fold hidden beauty and 
divineness dwelling in all Nature, which let all men 
worship as they can," so In his outlook upon political 
life, though he was in "every way an unconscious 
man, conscious of no heavenly message," there is a 
revelation of truth which, because visible in his day, 
is still truth and visible for all days. 



128 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

He was, as has been frequently said, not in the 
modern sense democratic. How could he be? Rep- 
resentative government was not yet firmly estab- 
lished: it had not vindicated many of the rights which 
belonged to It by precedent, still less begun to assert 
the constitutional authority that it exercises today. 
And as for pure democracy, or mobocracy, even if 
one had envisaged for Shakespeare a perfectibility 
of the Anglo-Saxon race in moral character, in mental 
sanity, in political wisdom, in unselfish devotion to 
the common control of common interests, how could 
he with his sanity, his perception of "the common 
curse of mankind," have accepted the vision as other 
than an insubstantial pageant? The populace of his 
ken was unguided, lacking civil polity and respon- 
sibility, unity of national interest, devotion to moral 
ideas and historical precedent. Though he had 
faith In, and sympathy with, the sterling virtues of 
the individual Englishman, his knowledge of English 
history, as well as his experience of the workings of 
the contemporary mob, justified a profound distrust 
of the political functions of any mob — by and for 
all. Flat democracy, triumphant, directly legislating, 
unselfishly and consistently, by native impulse and 
universal ballot — initiative, referendum, and recall — 
for common as well as individual Interests, and 
honorably administering the affairs of a nation at 
home and abroad, he would distrust if he were living 
today. But to representative government, so far as 
it existed in his day — the government of all, for all, 



Individual in Relation to the State 129 

by the best among them, by those who had with 
distinction studied and achieved the advantage of 
the state — to such aristocratic republicanism, every 
line that he has written of king or peer, politician, 
burgess, or peasant in relation to the state, shows 
that he yielded his whole-hearted allegiance. 

While he repudiates "the many-headed multi- 
tude" as politically inconstant, undeliberatlve, the 
dupe of the demagogue, he is not unfriendly to the 
man of low degree as such. 

As a playwright he of course adapts himself not 
only to the immediate Intelligence and favor of 
those for whom he writes but to the changing tem- 
per of the day. "In the follies of his mobs, as in 
the sarcasms of his aristocrats," says Mr. Mackail 
with an admirable suggestlveness, "he reflects the 
spirit of his audience whether at Whitehall or at 
the Bankslde. It Is only a further exemplification 
of this that In his later work the tone changes, and 
he sounds In Lear and elsewhere the note of pas- 
sionate pity for the poor. That note is his swift 
response to the ground-swell of the new democracy. 
The Tudor dynasty had become extinct, and with 
it the Iron Tudor system of repression and reaction 
had come to an end; the revolutionary movements 
of the Stuart period were beginning to stir. In these 
later plays, as in the earlier, Shakespeare Is still 
giving out what he received; he makes vocal, per- 
sonifies, vitalizes the impressions of his actual en- 
vironment." True, this, so far as it goes. Shake- 



130 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

speare gives out what he received; but from the 
impressions that he receives, he selects. Shakespeare 
personifies and vitalizes; but the vitality that he 
confers is the vitality of poetry — ^which Is a more 
philosophical and a higher thing than history, for 
it tends to express the universal. What spirit of 
the audience he reflects, he polarizes and purifies. 
When he responds to the ground-swell of the new 
democracy, the response is of his heart. When he 
makes vocal the murmur of the age, the voice is his 
own. When, in the sonnet which we have quoted, 
he cries for restful death rather than "behold desert 
a beggar born" and "gilded honor shamefully mis- 
placed," his heart Is speaking. And it is his voice that 
we hear in the lament of Lucrece, — 

The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds; 
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps. 

So, too, in the plays at a later period. When Hamlet 
soliloquizes : 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, . . . 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 

When he himself might his quietus make, 

it is the heart of Shakespeare that responds to the 
ground-swell, the voice of Shakespeare that expresses 
"the higher thing than history." When Lear recog- 
nizes in the beggars on the country-side brethren of 



Individual in Relation to the State 131 

his misery, the note of passionate pity Is no phono- 
graphic regurgitation of Impressions mechanically 
registered: 

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, 
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides. 
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you 
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en 
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
That thou mayest shake the superflux to them, 
And show the Heavens more just. 

Through the lips of the outcast king, Shakespeare's 
humanity speaks. It Is because the mutable rank- 
scented many are to Coriolanus, "You, common cry 
of curs," it is because he thinks of them as If he 
"were a God to punish, not a man of their Infirmity," 
that Coriolanus goes to his fate. While Shakespeare 
laughs Indeed at the foibles of the crowd, he satirizes 
the vanities and the follies of the rich as well and 
arraigns the oppressive tyranny and arrogance of a 
heartless oligarchy. He Is neither communist nor 
social democrat, born out of season. Nor is he a 
proponent of the aristocratic or monarchic rule that, 
deriving from birth or wealth or princes' favor arrays 
itself in insolence and ceremony and, seeking its 
own end and ease before that of the State manipu- 
lates the multitude. For a Brutus of noble though 
ill-timed ideals, but of tender heart for the rude and 



132 Shakespeare^ 5 Views of the 

suffering peasantry, he has naught but pity and 
admiration. 

Shakespeare was not anti-democratic, but like 
the sanest political thinkers of his day — the Hookers, 
Sandyses, Seldens, Southamptons, and the colonial 
builders of Virginia and New Plymouth, — "aristo- 
democratic." That coinage I should not use had 
not the adequate "aristocratic" lost in common 
parlance Its wholesome and primal significance, and 
dwindled to connote a single property of hereditary 
and titled caste. It has been said that "Shake- 
speare's whole reading of history is aristocratic." 
True; but not, as Hazlitt and Whitman conceived, 
anti-popular and feudal. If we apply the word 
"aristocratic" to his ideal of government we must 
invest it with its true intent, of government by the 
best — that which Plato had in mind when he de- 
scribed the ideal state as one in which wisdom, cour- 
age, temperance, and justice obtain and are ad- 
ministered for the happiness of all by guardians 
selected from all, for their superior fitness, their ex- 
cellence. Shakespeare was writing his Julius Caesar 
at just the time when patriots whom he knew were 
revolting with Essex against "the iron Tudor sys- 
tem of repression." He was writing his Hamlet, 
with Its dilemma of duty in suspense, the year after 
Essex had been executed, and while Southampton 
was in the Tower. He was writing his Lear when 
Sandys and Southampton were organizing the move- 
ment for democracy which stayed not even with 



Individual in Relation to the State 133 

the downfall of the Stuarts. He wrote his Coriolanus 
about the time that Sandys, Southampton, and 
Brooke were combating both autocratic Injustice 
and communistic disorder in Virginia, and were 
achieving the first free charter for the colony. 

Shakespeare is particularly, as Bagehot has told 
us, the poet of personal nobility. And nobility to 
Shakespeare Is "In the last resort a matter of char- 
acter rather than of descent. He Insists, it is true, 
upon obedience of word and deed to prescribed au- 
thority, and that authority In his world was, as a 
matter of fact, vested In kings and princes, but 
none the less his root-principle Is that of noblesse 
oblige.'' 1 Such nobility the King In All's Well that 
Ends Well graciously expounds: 

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, 

The place is dignified by the doer's deed: 

Where great additions swell's, and virtue none, 

It is a dropsled honour. . . . That is honour's scorn, 

Which challenges itself as honour's born 

And is not like the sire. Honours thrive 

When rather from our acts we them derive 

Than our foregoers. 

With what frequency does the poet indulge in so- 
liloquy (sometimes appropriate to character and 
occasion, sometimes not) of unfitness and corruption 
in high estate! "For who shall go about," reflects 

^E. de Selincourt, English Poets and the National Ideal, 11, 
13. 



134 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

the Prince of Arragon in Portia's casket-room at 
Belmont, 

Who shall go about 
To cozen fortune and be honourable 
Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume 
To wear an undeserved dignity. 
O, that estates, degrees, and offices 
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour 
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! 
How many then should cover that stand bare! 
How many be commanded that command 1 
How much low peasantry would then be gleaned 
From the true seed of honour! And how much honour 
Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times 
To be new-varnished! 

All this from one who has been sneering at "the fool 
multitude" and is about to be presented with a 
fool's head because, though deeming wisely of those 
who should wear dignity, he unwisely deems himself 
one such. This passage, with its emphasis upon 
degree and honor "purchased by the merit of the 
wearer," was written the year, or the year after, 
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which makes the 
same plea, had appeared. And the passage of like 
spirit in All's Well is of the same period. 

As for kings, why spend words to demonstrate 
what every reader of Shakespeare must see for him- 
self? The poet believes neither in vassalage nor 
divine right. It is only kings like the ineffectual 
and histrionic, sentimental and tyrannous Richard II, 



Individual in Relation to the State 135 

who has sucked the life-blood of his realm, that 
boast, "Not all the water In the rough rude sea Can 
wash the balm off from an anointed king. . . . The 
deputy elected by the Lord." Only such, that circle 
themselves with glorious angels in God's heavenly 
pay; only such, or criminals who, like Claudius, 
have won a throne by murder and would by murder 
hold it, that hedge themselves with divinity. Solely 
to buttress a ruined cause — foreseeing the civil dis- 
asters that follow dethronement without due trial 
by one's peers — do prelates, like King Richard's 
Bishop of Carlisle, put forward the current hy- 
pothesis of the divine right of kings. Quite other, 
the wisdom of John of Gaunt: "God's substitute. 
His deputy anointed in his sight" becomes, by crime, 
God's quarry; when the monarch commits his 
anointed body to the cure of flatterers, and leases 
out his England "like to a tenement or pelting 
farm," and makes the state of law a "bondslave to 
the law," he deposes himself. The tragedy of so- 
called divine right pervades Shakespeare's his- 
torical plays, — the tragedy of mortal pretension 
vain in itself, destructive and pitiable when coupled 
with self-devotion, incompetence, unfaithfulness, 
unscrupulousness, disloyalty to the realm, to the 
people. For ruler and ruled are one people. The 
people, though yet unconscious of It, are sovereign 
and in them resides whatever divine right there be. 
Hooker and the leaders of the nascent liberal move- 
ment in England were not unconscious of that. Nor 



136 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

was Shakespeare: his historical plays are a body- 
blow to the theory of the divine right of kings. 

Something of the characteristics a king should 
not have, of the graces he should, we read in the 
colloquy between Macduff and the prince whom he 
summons to the realm as its rightful savior from 
oppression — truest issue of the throne. To Malcolm 
professing vices that he has not, lust and stanchless 
avarice, Macduff replies, — 

Boundless intemperance 
In nature is a tyranny: it has been 
The untimely emptying of the happy throne, 
And fall of many kings; 

and then, "This avarice . . . hath been the sword 
of our slain kings." What "the king-becoming 
graces" are, the prince, disclaiming them with 
politic pretence, recites: 

Justice, verity, temperance, stableness, 
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowHness, 
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude. 

The play celebrates the coming to England of the 
Malcolm's royal line, the fancied hope of Southamp- 
ton and other of Shakespeare's friends. But with 
what unconscious prophetic irony is the play in- 
vested! The vices professed may not have been 
those of all four Stuart pretenders to divine right. 
But neither were the virtues; and twice In the Stuart 
career was England to witness "the untimely empty- 
ing of the happy throne." 



Individual in Relation to the State 137 

The reciprocal responsibility of prince and sub- 
ject in allegiance to the commonwealth is a prime 
lesson of The Life of Henry V. With all his faults of 
historical verisimilitude and Shakespearian limita- 
tion, Shakespeare's favorite prince is ruler and serv- 
ant both. He is the soul of a unified people — "such 
a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my 
farm to buy my crown." He Is the representative 
and Instrument of the national consciousness and 
will. He advances no proprietary claim to God. 
He Is according to his lights (and Shakespeare's) 
a democratic king: — "For though I speak it to 
you," says he, masquerading as a private, to privates 
Bates, Court, and Williams: "though I speak it 
to you, I think the king is but a man, as I am; the 
violet smells to him as it doth to me; all his senses 
have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid 
by, in his nakedness he appears but a man." Then 
he continues, "Every subject's duty is the king's; 
but every subject's soul is his own." Every sub- 
ject's duty Is the king's, for, but for ceremony, the 
peasant "had the forehand and the vantage of a 
king."- 

The slave, a member of the country's peace, 
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots 
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, 
Whose hours the peasant best advantages. 

"Every subject's duty Is the king's." Whether 
in the words of Henry V or the loyal Fauconbridge 



138 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

or Gaunt or the gardener at Langley, every subject — 
from peasant to peer all "dear friends" of king and 
country — is under obligation to the state. 

From those "whose limbs were made in England,'* 
whose lives of peace have been passed in "modest 
stillness and humility," naught else can be expected 
when the blast of war blows than that they "stiffen 
the sinews, summon up the blood," prove their love 
of country, even to the death: they "can not die 
anywhere so contented as in the king's company, 
his cause being just and his quarrel honorable." 
Nay, more, implies our patriot-poet, unflinching: 
if none but the patriot-king and his council know 
the cause to be spotless, still with them marches the 
obligation of the subject. "Every man's soul is 
his own:" but with individual freedom and respon- 
sibility there goes, hand in hand, political duty — ■ 
the patriotism of national faith, unity, devotion. 
Such patriotism is the premise of Fauconbridge's 
assurance: 

Come the three corners of the world in arms, 

And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, 

If England to itself do rest but true. 

This obligation of reciprocal responsibility is not, 
however, an argued patriotism with Shakespeare; 
it is the instinctive patriotism of national pride, 
gratitude, and love. Gaunt's apostrophe is not of 
the head but the heart: 



Individual in Relation to the State 139 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

This other Eden, demi-paradise. 

This fortress built by Nature for herself 

Against infection and the hand of war, 

This happy breed of men, this little world, 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall 

Or as a moat defensive to a house 

Against the envy of less happier lands. 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, . . . 

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, 

Dear for her reputation through the world. 

Lyrical outbursts of this kind may sound Insular; 
but to infer that Shakespeare's patriotism was 
merely Insular Is to Ignore his absorption of much 
that was best In the literature and spirit of the Re- 
naissance, and his sympathy with it. Timely elab- 
oration of the thought Is afforded by Sir Sidney Lee.* 
"Through Shakespeare's lifetime," says he, "Eng- 
lishmen explored Italy In numbers which Increased 
year by year. . . . They were impressed not 
merely by the country's Intellectual and artistic 
triumphs, but by the refined amenities of her social 
life. . . . 'Homekeeping youth have ever homely 
wits,' wrote Shakespeare. A perfect man, he added, 
was one who was tried and tutored outside his native 
country. The dramatist laughingly detected in 
the travelled Englishman no worse falling than a 

' Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance, 11-18. 



140 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

predilection for outlandish manners and dress which 
offended insular taste. ... A large part of Italian 
poetry and prose of the Renaissance was accessible 
to him in English translation. ... I claim Shake- 
speare as the greatest of humanists in the broad 
sense which the term justly bears in the history of 
the Italian Renaissance." . . . But, continues 
Sir Sidney, "he cannot be suspected of cosmopoli- 
tanism in its undesirable significance. The bracing 
air of toleration fed his spirit; but that virtuous 
sustenance never impaired his love of his own coun- 
try or his confident faith in her destiny. It was he 
who apostrophized his country and countrymen in 
his own magnificent diction as 'This happy breed 
of men, this little world . . . This blessed plot, 
this earth, this realm, this England.' At the same 
time Shakespeare, with almost equal fervor, dep- 
recates the shortness of vision which Ignores the 
patriotism of other countries, and refuses all fellow- 
feeling with them: 

Hath Britain all the sun that shines ? Day, night, 
Are they not but in Britain? . . . Prithee, think 
There's livers out of Britain. 

Shakespeare is at once the noblest expositor of pa- 
triotism, and the most resolute contemner of in- 
sularity." 



Individual in Relation to the State 141 

IV 

Our poet's political philosophy, if such we may 
term his imaginative interpretation of history and 
of legal and political theory, is based, like that of 
the greatest philosopher of all time, upon justice, 
fraternity of effort, allegiance. 

His justice is not of legal quibble. Though 
Chief Justice Campbell expressed his astonishment 
at the poet's acquaintance with legal technicalities, 
Shakespeare's knowledge of the law was "neither 
profound nor accurate," nor was it more in evidence 
than that of many contemporary sonnetteers and 
dramatists. However acquired — by contact with 
its procedure in his own lawsuits and In those of 
his family and neighbors, or by Intercourse with 
the members of his social circle in the Inns of 
Court, or by absorption of the litigious atmos- 
phere of his day, — his respect for the dignity 
of law Is, with a few exceptions, not discoverable 
in his portrayal of trial scenes, or in his employ- 
ment of legal dialectic and phraseology, or in the 
frequent metaphor and color of the law. "Its 
solemn absurdities. Its quibbling prevarications, 
its lormal futilities tickled Shakespeare's sense of 
humor." ^ His respect for law is displayed In the 
treatment of its nobler aspects, moral, positive, 
divine. 

1 Arthur Underhill in Shakespeare's England, I, 381 et seq., 
Ad Review in The Times, Literary Supplement, July 21, 191 6. 



142 Shakespeare's Views of the 

His justice is of the moral law, the same for dy- 
nasty and for nation as for individual. It is of cumu- 
lative fate or fortune, Moira, "visiting the sins of 
the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generation of those that hate God, and show- 
ing mercy unto thousands of them that love him 
and keep his commandments." This is the moral 
teaching of his Histories, when regarded in their 
chronological sequence from the origins of family 
strife In Richard H to the reconciliation of the war- 
ring factions at the end of Richard HI. The His- 
tories afford not only the spectacle of Innocent 
suffering and of just retribution In careers proceed- 
ing to catastrophes fraught with both pity and 
fear, but also the spectacle of Inherited tendencies 
descending the generations with boon as well as 
retributive bane. The sequence thus mitigates the 
aspect of inexplicable catastrophe, essential to the 
highest kind of tragedy: It reasserts justice as mercy 
in the careers of many whose characteristics, inherited 
or acquired, are In conformity with the welfare of the 
corporate movement. Likewise, In serious applica- 
tion to the individual Irrespective of heredity, his 
law is that of "poetical justice unknown" as Pro- 
fessor Mackall has said "to any court or code." 

Shakespeare's justice is also of law positive In Its 
nobler function, — "all-binding, keeping form and 
due proportion," even-handed In execution. "Go, 
bind thou up yon dangling aprlcocks" — says the 
gardener of Langley in that immortal idyllic inter- 



Individual in Relation to the State 143 

scene of Richard II where Shakespeare's sheer 
imagination plays: 

Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks, 

Which, like unruly children, make their sire 

Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight; 

Give some supportance to the bending twigs. 

Go thou, and like an executioner. 

Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, 

That look too lofty in our commonwealth; 

All must be even in our government. 

You thus employed, I will go root away 

The noisome weeds, which without profit suck 

The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers. 

The poet's justice Is also of law divine. God Is 
"the top of judgment," and of mercy, too: "It Is 
an attribute to God himself; And earthly power 
doth then show llkest God's, When mercy seasons 
justice." A justice this, of moral authority higher 
than the will of earthly judge or monarch or of the 
state; a justice of which some glimpse is vouch- 
safed to mortals through that "discourse of reason" 
with which the Maker has endowed them. 

That Shakespeare's philosophy of the state as- 
sumes fraternity of effort has appeared from the 
foregoing. "We few," says Henry V on the mem- 
orable day of Agincourt," shall be remembered" — 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, 
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
Shall be my brother. 



144 Shakespeare'' s Views of the 

, The state demands not only the devotion of the 
individual, but the cooperation of all for common 
order and common control. Shakespeare looked 
back to an England divided against Itself and devas- 
tated by the Wars of the Roses during an agony 
of which the cessation was no farther removed from 
his day or consciousness than are the French Revolu- 
tion and the Napoleonic wars from ours. Those 
English civil wars still appealed vividly "to the 
popular Imagination; and the force of tradition was 
then far more potent than it can ever be In an age 
of primers." ^ Is It strange that the political moral 
of his "histories" from the reign of John to that 
of Richard III, and sometimes of plays remote 
from England, but dealing with history. Is the su- 
preme Importance of national concord In affliction 
as in prosperity? But this national concord Is not 
of flat democracy likely to degenerate into anarchy 
and then tyranny, but of free cooperation of distinct 
classes, according to their several degrees of merit 
and fitness, for the good of the community. It is the 
polity of a commonwealth or res puhlica advocated 
by many of Shakespeare's contemporaries and 
predecessors — the commonwealth that Sir Thomas 
Smith as early as 1583, or Richard Hooker In 1594, 
had described as the best kind of democracy. The 
theory derives directly from consideration of English 
history but ultimately from the teachings of Plato. 
In the Republic, says Socrates, "temperance re- 
^ Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, 40-41. 



Individual in Relation to the State 145 

sembles a concord of harmony . . . producing a 
unison between the weakest and the strongest and 
the middle." From Plato's Republic Cicero bor- 
rowed the analogy; and from Cicero's Republic, of 
which we have only fragments, the passage came 
to the Elizabethans through St. Augustine's City 
of God.^ "For government," says Shakespeare's 
Exeter In Henry V (1599), using almost the words of 
St. Augustine's Latin, 

For government, though high and low and lower. 
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, 
Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
Like music. 

And the Archbishop standing by, continues the 
thought: 

Therefore doth heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions, 
Setting endeavour in continual motion, 
To which is fixed as an aim or butt, 
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, 
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach, 
The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

Then follows that description of the hive — none 
the less Indicative of Shakespeare's view because per- 
haps elaborated from Lyly's Euphues, — which with 
wondrous wisdom develops the aristodemocratic 
ideal of a realm in which all functions and degrees, 
the * emperor" with the rest, play for the common 
1 See H. R. D. Anders, Shakespeare's Books, 278. 



146 Shakespeare* s Views of the 

service their willing parts. Still more definitely 
emphasizing the democratic quality of the ruler, 
the figure recurs in All's Well that Ends Well of 
1 595-1602, where the king, sickening to death, wishes 

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home, 
I quickly were dissolved from my hive, 
To give some labourers room. 

To this figure of the well-ordered government, with 
its observance of degrees in duly proportioned sub- 
ordination of all to the common weal, Shakespeare 
returns a few years later in his Troilus and Cressida, 
reinforcing it this time with what looks like an 
adaptation from Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. 
Here his mouthpiece is Ulysses — 

When that the general is not like the hive 

To whom the foragers shall all repair, 

What honey is expected ? Degree being vizarded, 

The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. 

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre 

Observe degree, priority and place. . . . 

Take but degree away, untune that string, 

And, hark, what discord follows! Each thing meets 

In mere oppugnancy. — 

A thought again and again emphasized in the politi- 
cal writings of the Renaissance; a thought so re- 
current in divers Shakespearian plays, and so ad- 
mirably extended beyond the dramatic need, that 
it impresses us as indubitably the poet's conviction 



Individual in Relation to the State 147 

concerning the sine qua non of political potency and 
peace. That the poet does not, however, hy the 
insistence of his Ulysses upon degree, endorse the 
extreme aristocratic interpretation of degree as 
bound up with "primogenitive and due of birth," 
appears from the fact that in the same sequence he 
includes degrees and laurels compassed not by birth 
but worth. The political philosophy of England 
under the Tudors recognized, indeed, the kingly 
office "as the source from which the various titles 
of honor and grades in the higher ranks of society 
spring;" but Shakespeare was not alone in recog- 
nizing also a more democratic ideal — in calling for 
the recognition of merit irrespective of birth, in 
deploring "right perfection wrongfully disgraced," 
in calling for government by fraternity of effort. 
The thought was that of Hooker and Fulke Greville 
and of the active leaders of the liberal movement 
from 1594 down. 

From disregard of the principles of which we 
have spoken factions arise: allegiance is vitiated, 
and the national existence imperilled. In Measure 
for Measure, of about the same date as the Troilus, 
the greatest peril to the state proceeds, according 
to the good but indulgent Duke, from laws "let 
sleep," from false report and backwounding calumny 
of those in constituted authority: then "liberty 
plucks justice by the nose." In 2 Henry VI, com- 
piled earlier, "the commons, like an angry hive of 
bees That want their leader, scatter up and down 



148 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

And care not who they sting in his revenge." In 
King John, also written earlier, it is because discon- 
tented visionaries have been suborned by foreign 
cajolery to quarrel with obedience, 

Swearing allegiance and the love of soul 
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty, 

that the "inundation of mistempered humor" has 
overspread the realm. And it is only when such 
"destruction and perpetual shame" have been 
pushed "out of the weak door of our fainting land" 
that the ever-loyal Fauconbridge, Shakespeare's 
patriot of the play, utters his prophetic and not 
altogether boastful assurance — 

This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
But when it first did help to wound itself. 

The whole course of our poet's political drama makes 
for the development of a national consciousness by 
directing the freedom of the individual toward the 
service of the common weal and ideal — in coopera- 
tion, aristodemocratic according to just degrees of 
function and desert, under the moral leadership not 
of an autocrat nor an oligarchy but of the best. As 
in Richard II and Henry V, so supremely in King 
John — plays befitting the critical period in national 
affairs, 1594-1599 — is the lesson of national unity 
Shakespeare's dominant motive. Though even the 



Individual in Relation to the State 149 

lines last quoted are based upon those of an earlier 
Fauconbridge in an anonymous play, the poetic 
fervor and patriotism in the Life and Death of 
King John are Shakespeare's own. To a degree not 
paralleled by any contemporary dramatist, and with 
an impressiveness one may call unique. King John 
is also a lesson in national sovereignty. "Shake- 
speare is determined to write a drama of which the 
hero shall be not a king, but the nation itself; the 
genius of a people, as apart from the caprice or the 
villainy of its rulers. The people of England, as 
impersonated in Fauconbridge are the character 
and the theme of King John." ^ 

V 

Though Shakespeare depicts war as "the son of 
Hell ;" though, when the wars of the Roses are ended, 
Richmond's prayer for "smooth-faced Peace With 
smiling Plenty and fair prosperous days" is also 
Shakespeare's; though the poet greets the accession 
of James I with "Peace proclaims olives of endless 
age," — his is not the peace described by one of his 
clowns, "a very apoplexy, lethargy, mull'd, deaf, 
sleepy, insensible." "Plenty and peace breeds 
cowards," says Imogen. Though Shakespeare has 
no sympathy for him who wantonly "comes to open 
The purple testament of bleeding war," especially 
of civil war, the state as Shakespeare conceived it 

^ Morton Luce, Handbook of Shakespeare's Works, 400-401. 



150 Shakespeare's Views of the 

is martially organized to maintain the rights of 
peace. He tells us again and again that "the wound 
of peace is surety, surety secure." It is not sufficient 
that his England, crowning her brows with fillets 
of prosperity and indolence, pour mingled wine to 
Destiny. She shall be not empty of defense but 
provident as of war in expectation and, with the 
unquestioning cooperation of her subjects, impreg- 
nable, "still secure And confident from foreign pur- 
poses." In times of peace such as our modern world 
recently enjoyed while international sanctions ob- 
tained or seemed to obtain, Shakespeare's contempt 
of "less happier lands" and suspicion of their "envy" 
might savor of chauvinism. But in his day the 
confidence even of statesmen in international pro- 
fessions of amity was not ordinarily deeper than that 
of his Henry V or his Fauconbridge. If he had 
heard as much of international promises as we have, 
and could judge of their worth in certain mouths 
now, his patriotism, even his chauvinism would, I 
venture to say, be precisely what they were. In 
his comparatively unenlightened condition he un- 
doubtedly held, with his own Lymoges, "The peace 
of heaven is theirs that lift their swords In . . . 
just and charitable war." As for checks and dis- 
asters, when his Agamemnon reminds the allied 
princes, abashed because "after seven years' siege 
yet Troy walls stand," that deterrents are not shame, 
it is Shakespeare who holds that they "are indeed 
nought else" 



Individual in Relation to the State 151 

But the protractive trials of great Jove 

To find persistive constancy in men; 

The fineness of which metal is not found 

In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward, 

The wise and fool, the artist and unread. 

The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin. 

But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, 

Distinction with a loud and powerful fan, 

Puffing at all, winnows the light away; 

And what hath mass and matter by itself 

Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. 

When his Fauconbrldge, the sword of the nation 
once unsheathed, rails on "Commodity" that would 
draw the realm "From a resolved and honorable 
war To a most base and vile-concluded peace," 
it is Shakespeare that rails. We may be sure that, 
if he were living now, he would be repeating with 
unction the words of his wag in Measure for Measure, 
"Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of 
Hungary's!" 

In his political instincts Shakespeare was, accord- 
ing to his circumstance and insight, a meliorist, — 
not a theorist, sentimentalist, doctrinaire, political 
or journalistic ostrich, or gelatinous optimist. He 
was historically and morally discipled; not a blas- 
phemer of God as pietistic protagonist of selfishness 
and lethargy. He was not provincially blinded to 
national honor and obligation. He was not a pacifist 
at any price. To Shakespeare the imperfectibility 
of human nature, even with its god-like apprehen- 



152 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

slon, is self-evident. He looked for amelioration, — 
but not through national oblivion of dignity and 
right, or international council of angelic hierarchies. 
A millennium before the kingdom of God is fulfilled 
in every carnal heart, he could no more visualize than 
does any sane American today. 

When, in writing the speech of Ulysses, quoted 
in part above, Shakespeare departs from the Pla- 
tonic tradition and, adapting Chaucer or Rabelais 
or Hooker, or any one of the numerous sources at 
his command, portrays the destruction of the heavens 
and the earth upon the neglect of law and degree, he 
strays at times from the human analogy of the tur- 
moil within the state to that of turmoil between 
state and state, nay, even, to that of universal 
war: 

But when the planets 
In evil mixture to disorder wander, 
What plagues and what portents! What mutiny! 
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! 
Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors, 
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 
The unity and married calm of states 
Quite from their fixure! 

May no lesson for a world of nations be derived from 
the poetic vision of what results when, with disre- 
gard of justice and due proportion, a planetary 
power thus plunges into strife and rends "the married 
calm of states?" "Enterprise is sick." "Peaceful 



Individual in Relation to the State 153 

commerce from dividable shores" loses its "au- 
thentic place:" 

The bounded waters, 
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores 
And make sop of all this solid globe. 
Strength should be lord of imbecility, 
And the rude son should strike his father dead. 
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, 
Between whose endless jar justice resides. 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then everything includes Itself in power, 
Power into will, will into appetite; 
And appetite, an universal wolf. 
So doubly seconded with will and power, 
Must make perforce an universal prey, 
And last eat up himself. 

In the last ten lines the poet has returned to the 
Platonic tradition; but he has transformed the 
"wolf" of Plato's republic into a Wolf of the World. 
Though in Shakespeare's day international law- 
was but in its infancy, for Shakespeare law and 
humanity rule between states, and over states the 
justice of God. Henry V, questioning whether with 
right and conscience he may make a claim on France 
that if .denied shall entail war, conjures his arch- 
bishop to unfold justly whether there is a right in 
law to bar him from the claim: "And God forbid . . . 
that you should fashion, wrest or bow your reading" 
with aught "whose right" 



154 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

Suits not in native colours with the truth; 
For God doth know how many now in health 
Shall drop their blood in approbation 
Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, 
How you awake our sleeping sword of war. 
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed; 
For never two such kingdoms did contend 
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops 
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 
'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords 
That make such waste in brief mortality. 

Whether the historical Henry was of so nice con- 
science and humanized ideal, such responsibility for 
guiltless bloodshed, matters little. There is nothing 
in the sources to show that he was. This humanity 
whose guardian and recording angel Is Law, Is of 
the poetic heart and vision of Shakespeare, as is all 
that I have quoted in the preceding sections. 

VI 

Writing of the Age of Elizabeth, Professor Raleigh ^ 
has recently said that "the political beliefs and 
habits of thought which seem to express themselves 
in Shakespeare's plays were the average beliefs of 
the time. . . . The English historical plays treat 
the clash of personalities, and exhibit human charac- 
ter tested by great events, but hardly touch on 
political theory. There is nothing to wonder at in 
^ Sir Walter Raleigh, in Shakespeare's England, I, 7-1 1. 



Individual in Relation to the State 155 

this; authors and craftsmen who have taken human 
nature for their province commonly stand aloof from 
the politics of their age. But the fact is that the 
political issues which exercised the imagination of 
the ordinary intelligent man in Shakespeare's day 
were few and simple. Indeed it might truly be said 
that there was only one live question, or at least 
there was only one question so real and insistent 
and practical that it overshadowed all the rest. 
That question was how political unity and power 
might be achieved and consolidated against the 
forces of anarchy, against domestic treason and 
foreign aggression. It is the question treated by 
Machiavel in the wonderful little book which domi- 
nated all the political thought of the sixteenth 
century. But even if the problem of the Prince 
had never been mooted in literature, it would have 
been brought home to the minds of men by ex- 
perience. . . . Under Elizabeth the nation longed 
for security and peace; the maintenance and security 
of the powers of government was what concerned 
the people; and it was not till a later time that the 
question of the balance and subdivision of political 
power became the chief problem for thinkers. . . . 
That the sovereign powers of the State might be 
exercised by a corporation or council was a possi- 
bility which had to be considered by Machiavel, 
but it was too remote from English thought and 
habit to claim attention in England. ... In this 
matter Shakespeare is simply a man of his time. 



156 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

He believed in rank and order and subordination. 
His speeches in favor of these things have nothing 
ironical about them, and are never answered by 
equally good speeches on the other side. Indeed 
they may all be paralleled from the works of his 
contemporaries." Of "the greatest of Shakespeare's 
dramatic speeches on politics," that of Ulysses rec- 
ommending order and subordination, Sir Walter 
remarks, "Popular orators, from Antony to jack 
Cade, who pander to the restless desires of the mob, 
get from* the dramatist no such measure of sympathy 
as went to the making of this speech. Shakespeare, 
it is sometimes said, never takes a side. It is true 
that for the most part he takes his stand with aver- 
age humanity, and is hardly ever eccentric. But 
he had a meaning, even while drama was his trade; 
in this matter of politics he was on the side of the 
government, and of all but a very few who were 
proud to call themselves the subjects of the Queen." 
With all that Is said here concerning Shakespeare's 
belief In the political unity and power of the state, 
in rank and order and subordination, I am of course 
in accord; and I grant that his utterances In this 
respect may be paralleled from the works of his 
contemporaries, at least his non-dramatic contem- 
poraries. But I question whether he was, as a 
subject, always "on the side of the government," 
especially when the Queen sent Essex to the scaf- 
fold and Southampton to the Tower, and when the 
"Patriots" were remonstrating against the auto- 



Individual in Relation to the State 157 

cratlc methods and favoritism of James in 1614. 
And I am sure that not all the political beliefs and 
habits of thought of Shakespeare were "the average 
beliefs of the time." His judgments concerning 
autocracy, concerning political unity and the sov- 
ereignty of the people, concerning the recognition 
of merit in government, the rights of the individual, 
the consciousness of justice and not of might in the 
administration of foreign as well as domestic reKtions, 
are differentiated from, and are above, "the average 
beliefs of the time." They are the judgments of the 
wisest and most conscientiously patriotic of his 
contemporaries. Especially is this the case in his 
treatment of the "problem of the Prince." How 
far in this respect Shakespeare's view Is lifted above 
"the average belief of the time," even In England, Is 
luminously expressed by a writer on the national 
Ideal In English poetry. "There can be little doubt," 
says Professor de Sellncourt,^ "that when Shake- 
speare drew the portrait" of the Ideal ruler In Henry 
V "his eye was firmly fixed In reprobation upon 
another ideal current at his time, which, though 
generally but loosely denounced by his contempo- 
raries, was exercising an Indubitable Influence upon 
statesmen and politicians. That policy was Machia- 
vellianism. Machlavelli's Prince had been the text- 
book of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful adviser 
of Henry VHI; Its precepts were In a measure fol- 
lowed by both Cecil and Leicester; much of its 
* English Poets and the National Ideal, pp. 30-33. 



158 Shakespeare^ s Views of the 

teaching was advocated later by Lord Bacon. ^ 
Shakespeare's delineation of Henry V becomes more 
significant when we turn to the pages of Machia- 
velli and see the political and national teaching to 
which Henry is, as it were, the counterblast. The 
prime object with which Machiavelli wrote was to 
effect the unification of Italy. Hence his idea of 
the state is confined to its military and political 
aspects; he Ignores culture, private comfort and 
advantage, and all religious considerations. . . . 
He maintained certain propositions, which exer- 
cised a fascination over his Elizabethan readers 
even while they execrated their author, and par- 
ticularly over those who were themselves empire- 
builders. The first of these Is the doctrine that the 
end justifies the means; the second that Christianity 
does not encourage that Idea of worldly glory which 
Is essential to the welfare, nay, the existence of a 
state, whilst Paganism upholds worldly glory as 
admirable. ..." According to Machiavelli the 
prince "must not be guided In his actions by the 
ordinary moral code. He must love his country 
more than the safety of his soul. He must 
be careless of the individual and consider only 
the glory of the community. Consequently we 
find him telling us with care and exactitude, when 
the prince should break his word, when he should 
betray his servant, when he should throw over an 

1 Who, as I have pointed out in Appendix D, cut his coat to 
suit the cloth. 



Individual in Relation to the State 159 

ally he is pledged to support, and so on; and particu- 
lar emphasis is laid upon the use of fraud to achieve 
his ends, for 'it behoves the ruler to be a fox as well 
as a lion.' All this sounds horrible enough in cold 
blood, but no student of history could affirm that 
Machiavelli was introducing new ideas into state- 
craft. He was merely reducing to a science, and 
setting the seal of political philosophy upon methods 
which have always played a large part in the policy 
of kings and governments. Machiavelli was the 
Treitschke and Bernhardi of the Renaissance. The 
novelty consisted in the codification, as it were, and 
the justification of acts which, though often prac- 
tised, had been regarded hitherto as morally inde- 
fensible. It was a clear statement of the superiority 
of the expedient over the right, a definite and cynical 
denial that the same laws of morality applied to the 
state and to the individual, an assertion of the prin- 
ciple that 'necessity knows no law.' Shakespeare's 
answer to this view of politics is found in all his 
delineations of political and national life. . . . 
Shakespeare was no professional political philoso- 
pher, he was a practical dramatist and a poet, whose 
first interest and study was human life and individual 
human character. But like all Elizabethans he was 
a patriot who loved to ponder over his nation's 
history, and this was his reading of history." That 
his reading of history was by no means that of the 
average man but that of the ripest thinkers and 
patriots of his day, has, I trust, already been shown. 



i6o Shakespeare^s Views of the 

They were the men who, fortifying the ramparts of 
liberty in England, laid also the foundations of 
liberty in America. The most eminent and imme- 
diate of their masters in political philosophy was 
Richard Hooker. 

Like Hooker and his disciple Sandys, like Sandys 
and Southampton and their associates in the Vir- 
ginia Council and in parliament, Shakespeare re- 
pudiates autocracy whether by divine right or force. 
Like them he repudiates also mob-rule, communism, 
and flat democracy. Hooker justifies other kinds 
of regiment than monarchy; Sandys goes further, 
and is at heart opposed to government by mon- 
archy: Shakespeare accepts monarchy as the estab- 
lished form of rule in England, but he believes in its 
constitutional limitation. Hooker and Sandys jus- 
tify the deposition of the unjust king; so does Shake- 
speare. Hooker and his disciple Sandys, and 
Sandys's associates in the Virginia Council and in 
Parliament, insist upon government by consent of 
the governed. Shakespeare has no faith In the fitness 
of all the governed to govern themselves; but he 
joins hands with Hooker and the patriots of the 
council and of Parliament In the Ideal of a govern- 
ment administered for the people by their fittest — 
not by an aristocracy of birth or wealth but of merit, 
an arlstodemocracy of noblesse oblige. In govern- 
ment thus representative, struggling In his day 
toward realization, Shakespeare is undoubtedly a 
believer. Like the thinkers — Hooker and Greville — 



Individual in Relation to the State i6i 

like Sandys, Southampton, Pembroke, Neville, Gates, 
De la Warr, Sackville, Brooke, Cavendish, Selden, 
Digges, Martin, Hoskyns, the Ferrars, and many 
other patriots in the Council of the Virginia Com- 
pany, in Parliament, or in the colony, friends of 
Shakespeare or friends of his friends, the poet be- 
lieved in the right of the individual to liberty, prop- 
erty and the pursuit of happiness; in equality before 
the law; and in law "all-binding, keeping form and 
due proportion;" in even-handed justice; in duty 
to the common order in society and state; in fra- 
ternity of eifort and patriotic allegiance. Like the 
best of them he affirmed right conscience as arbiter 
of internal issues; and he believed in a God over- 
ruling with justice the affairs of all nations. 

Let us now consider more in detail the points of 
contact between Shakespeare's utterance and that 
of the philosopher of the liberal movement. 



l62 Shakespeare and Hooker 



CHAPTER VII 

SHAKESPEARE AND HOOKER 

Shakespeare's utterances of social and political 
creed, as quoted in the preceding chapter and as 
there summed up, are with but few exceptions 
anticipated by Hooker in his publication of 1594. 
If the similarity between the twain were merely of 
thought, and but once or twice apparent in their 
works, it might be matter of coincidence, explicable 
by the commonplace of tradition and of literary 
and conversational currency: Hooker was preaching 
at the Temple from 1585 to 1591; Shakespeare was 
in London from 1587 on. But not only is the con- 
sentaneity recurrent and, so far as Shakespeare is 
concerned, widely distributed through his poetic 
output, the similarity is of figure and language as 
well; and sometimes it is in marked degree arresting. 
Hooker's book was deeply studied and profoundly 
admired by Londoners of political tendency long 
after his death in 1600. Shakespeare was actively 
occupied in London for some ten years later than 
that. 

Of the parallelism between these two writers let 
us take the most extended and diversified example. 
It is that which I have already in part quoted as 



Shakespeare and Hooker 163 

illustrating Shakespeare's insistence upon the doc- 
trine of "degree." Says Ulysses, accounting for 
the Grecian reverses before Troy (Troilus and Cres- 
sida, I, iii, 78-137), 

The speciality of rule hath been neglected; 
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand 

80 Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. 
When that the general is not like the hive 
To whom the foragers shall all repair, 
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, 
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. 

85 The heavens themselves^ the planets, and this centre 
Observe degree, priority and place, 
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, 
Office and custom, in all line of order; 
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol 

90 In noble eminence enthroned and sphered 
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye 
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil. 
And posts, like the commandment of a king, 
Sans check to good and bad. But when the planets 

95 In evil mixture to disorder wander. 

What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! 
What raging of the sea ! shaking of earth! 
Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors, 
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 
100 The unity and married calm of states 

Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd, 
Which is the ladder to all high designs. 
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities. 
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, 



164 Shakespeare and Hooker 

105 Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, 
The primogenitive and due of birth, 
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
But by degree, stand in authentic place? 
Take but degree away, untune that string, 

1 10 And, hark, what discord follows! Each thing meets 
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters 
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores 
And make a sop of all this solid globe. 
Strength should be lord of imbecility, 

115 And the rude son should strike his father dead. 
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, 
Between whose endless jars justice resides. 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then everything includes itself In power, 

120 Power into will, will into appetite; 
And appetite, an universal wolf, 
So doubly seconded with will and power. 
Must make perforce an universal prey. 
And last eat up itself. Great Agamemnon, 

125 This chaos, when degree is suffocate. 
Follows the choking. 
And this neglection of degree Is It 
That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose 
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd 

130 By him one step below, he by the next, 
That next by him beneath; so every step, 
Exampled by the first pace that Is sick 
Of this superior, grows to an envious fever 
Of pale and bloodless emulation; 

135 And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot. 
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, 
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 165 

This speech was written at the earliest in 1602, 
and not later than 1609. The likeness between 
Shakespeare's thought and expression in the lines 
italicized, 85 to 108, and a passage in Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical Polity, which I shall presently quote, 
has often been noted. That, and further resem- 
blances not so frequently remarked between the 
tenor of Ulysses' argument as a whole and the teach- 
ing of Hooker in other parts of the Polity, we 
shall examine. But, to be fair, we should clear 
the field of borrowings or inspirations for which 
Shakespeare is indebted, certainly or presumably, 
to his acquaintance with other authors. We may 
then, setting Hooker's writing side by side with 
the residue, judge whether resemblances still per- 
sist. 

The speech of Ulysses forms part of the heroic 
strand of Troilus and Cressida. For the dramatic 
impulse of the speech, its subject "the specialty of 
rule," and particularly for the phraseology of the 
first five lines (78-83) and the figure of the hive, 
Shakespeare is indebted to an English manipulation 
or translation of the second book of the Iliad — prob- 
ably to Chapman's translation of 1598. From this 
also he seems to have derived the suggestion for 
the argument concerning "degree," and for the 
analogy between "the heavens themselves" with 
their shining dignitaries and the course of human 
governments. The analogy once suggested, Shake- 
speare remembers that there is an elaboration of the 



i66 Shakespeare and Hooker 

same thought in the story from which he is drawing 
the love-strand of his play, namely the Troilus and 
Criseyde of Chaucer. To that passage in his Chaucer 
he turns; and then perceiving that Chaucer, who 
had translated the De Consolatione Philosophiae 
of Boethius into prose, is paraphrasing from his own 
translation, he naturally turns back to the transla- 
tion as bound up in the same folio of Chaucer's 
Works. From the figure, elaborated by both Boe- 
thius and Chaucer, of the harmony of the "country 
of the stars," of the bond that holds the "elements" 
of our earth and their "peoples joined in wholesome 
alliaunce" under the governance of Love; from their 
figure of the discord that would ensue if "Love 
aught let his bridle go," we may be confident, if 
one is ever justified in tracing the details of a poet's 
fancy to a definite source, that Shakespeare drew 
some of the details for the corresponding part of 
the speech of Ulysses I should say, especially such 
details as "the unity and married calm of states," 
line 100, and lines 111-113 — 

The bounded waters 
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores 
And make a sop of all this solid globe. 

To be sure, with Boethius and Chaucer the bond 
that holds the universe together is Love, whereas 
with Shakespeare's Ulysses it is Law; but that does 
not affect the underlying thought, for the "love" 



Shakespeare and Hooker 167 

of Boethius and Chaucer is also "law and wise judge 
to do equity." ^ 

There is, however, much In the discourse of 
Ulysses that cannot be traced to materials in Chaucer, 
Boethius, and Homer, or to any contemporary treat- 
ment of the story. In none of these is the analogy 
between the political order and that of the celestial 
spheres developed as here; In none, the theory of gov- 
ernment by supreme authority and degree. In none 
is the wreck of the planetary system described; and 
in none do we find the psychology of the discourse. 

The doctrine of the harmonious order of the uni- 
verse, sphere within sphere. Is of course of the 
Pythagorean tradition, as handed down by Plato 
in the tenth book of the Republic, and as reduced 
to the geocentric system of astronomy by Ptolemy. 
The Ptolemaic system was still generally accepted 
in Shakespeare's time; and to such teaching may 
be attributed the poet's description of Sol as a planet 
whose sphere — or orbit — Is midway between the 
others. As for the wreck of the universe, the fancy 
had been elaborated with jocose application by 
Rabelais, something of whose work was known to 
Shakespeare.^ But from no such source does he 
derive the precise materials for the poetic analogy 
drawn by Ulysses of celestial and political law, still 
less the sequence of the discourse. 

^ For this indebtedness to Homer, Boethius, Chaucer, see 
Appendix E. 

2 See below. Appendix F. 



l68 Shakespeare and Hooker 

The political philosophy resembles that with which 
writers of the Italian renaissance had familiarized 
Englishmen from the reign of Henry VII down. 
It is of Platonic-Aristotelian provenience and is 
plainly set forth in an educational treatise written 
by Sir Thomas Elyot in 153 1. From chapters one 
and two of the first book of The Governour, Shake- 
speare could have derived hints for the political 
argument advanced by his Ulysses, for illustration, 
and even for phraseology. Elyot here touches upon 
the analogy of the heavenly spheres, emphasizes 
order, degree, and justice in governance, the "chaos" 
that ensues upon the disregard of them, and the 
destruction of the agent who brings about the dis- 
solution; and he elaborates the economy of the bee. 
We must, however, remember that save the em- 
phasis upon degree, there is little to Shakespeare's 
purpose in Elyot that Shakespeare had not already 
under his hand in Chaucer, Boethius, and the Iliad; 
that Elyot's is but one of the numerous expositions 
of the political doctrine accessible to the poet; and 
that the figures and phrases were the flotsam of 
conversation as well as of political literature in 
Shakespeare's day.^ 

Homer and Chaucer, surely, — Boethius, prob- 
ably, — Elyot, possibly, — have suggested now one and 
now another phase of the thought, imagery, and 
diction, but in none are to be found the develop- 
ment of thought, the elaboration and application 
* See Appendix G. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 169 

of imagery, the psychology which characterize the 
discourse of Ulysses as a whole. For these the most 
succinct and satisfactory contemporary parallelism 
is presented in a few closely sequent pages of Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical Polity. To the resemblance between 
the part about the celestial spheres and a paragraph 
in Hooker upon law, " as at once the rule of moral ac- 
tion and government, and the rule of moral agents," 
the Shakespearian editor, Verplanck, called atten- 
tion some seventy years ago. "It is possible," says 
he, "that the poet had this thought suggested by 
an analogous passage, of equal eloquence, in his con- 
temporary Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, of which 
the first parts were published in 1594. If it were 
not, it was no very strange coincidence between the 
thoughts of men of large and excursive minds, at 
once poetical and philosophical, applied to the most 
widely differing subjects." 

The passage in the Ecclesiastical Polity (Bk. I, 
iil, 2) runs as follows: "God's commanding those 
things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they 
are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, 
importeth the establishment of nature's law. . . . 
And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, 
that after a law is once published, it presently takes 
effect far and wide, all states framing themselves there- 
unto, even so let us think it fareth in the natural 
course of the world; since the time that God did 
first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven 
and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their 



170 Shakespeare and Hooker 

labour hath been to do his will: He 'made a law for 
the rain;' He gave his 'decree unto the sea, that the 
waters should not pass his commandment.'' Now, if 
nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether 
though It were but for a while the observation of her 
own laws; If those principal and mother elements 
of the world, whereof all things In this lower world 
are made, should lose the qualities which now they 
have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over 
our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial 
spheres should forget their wonted motions, and hy 
irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might 
happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which 
now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should 
as It were through a languishing falntness begin to 
stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander 
from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the 
year blend themselves by disordered and confused 
mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the earth 
be defeated by heavenly influence, the fruits of the 
earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of 
their mother no longer able to yield them relief; what 
would become of man himself, whom these things 
now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience 
of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the 
whole world? ^^ ^ 

I have italicized for the convenience of the reader 
the more suggestive parallelisms in thought and 

* Everyman edition, 156-7. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 171 

phrase between this passage and lines 85-98 of the 
speech of Ulysses. 

We cannot but agree with Verplanck that in 
thought and eloquence Shakespeare is "singularly 
like" Hooker. The fact is, however, that both the 
Elizabethans had been reading Boethius De Con- 
solatione, and that for both the initial suggestion 
of the figure of celestial harmony and discord pro- 
ceeded from that author. Hooker, however, had 
used not the Chaucerian translation of Boethius 
but the original. In Book I, ii, 6, of the Polity,^ 
just two pages before Hooker launches upon his 
poetic analogy, he quotes directly from Boethius 
the Latin introduction to the exposition of "the 
ordinance which moveth the heaven and the stars" 
and of the way In which, through Love, "the high 
thunderer . . . maketh interchangeable the per- 
durable courses;" and this Latin Hooker translates 
in terms not used by Chaucer.^ In many other 
parts of the first book of the Polity Hooker's thought 
follows that of Boethius; and though both Hooker 
and Boethius make direct use of Aristotle's Ethics, 
in some instances it Is evidently the language of 
Boethius and not of Aristotle that Hooker para- 
phrases. At first blush, therefore, one is Inclined to 
explain the singular similarity between Shakespeare 
and Hooker In this spot by referring it altogether 
to the Boethian source. But upon further examlna- 

1 Everyman edition, 153-4. 

2 See Appendix H. 



172 Shakespeare and Hooker 

tion it appears that, though the initial impulse to 
the employment of the celestial analogy is Boethian, 
the resemblance between Shakespeare and Hooker 
in the elaboration of it, in the description of the 
wreck of the universe, and in the subsequent dis- 
course, cannot be explained in this way. 

For his description of the wreck Hooker makes 
use of a source not consulted by Boethius and not 
known to Shakespeare, a Latin treatise of Arnobius, 
written about 303 A. D. And when we deduct from 
Shakespeare's development of the analogy as a 
whole the Chaucerian-Boethian parallelisms al- 
ready noted, namely, "the bounded waters," "a 
sop of all this solid globe," etc., we find in what 
remains — "the heavens themselves, the planets, 
and this centre observe . . . insisture, course . . . 
season ... in all line of order;" "in evil mixture to 
disorder wander;" "commotion in the winds," 
"what plagues and what portents," and various 
other items — a striking similarity with those sen- 
tences in Hooker which Hooker has almost literally 
translated from Arnobius.^ Even though Shake- 
speare's brain might readily have furnished the 
words and phrases to his Ulysses, this continuance 
of similarity with Hooker alone justifies further 
pursuit of the investigation. 

Verplanck, judging merely from what lay before 
him, is of the same opinion. "Hooker's subsequent 
remarks," he says, "singularly remind the reader of 
* See Appendix H. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 1 73 

the more rapid view given by the poet of 'the unity 
and married calm of state' and the ills by which it is 
disturbed." Let us quote again "the more rapid 
view." 

Frights, changes, horrors 
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 

100 The unity and married calm of states 

Quite from their fixure! 0, when degree is shak^d, 
Which is the ladder to all high designs^ 
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities, 
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, 

105 Peaceful commerce from dividable shores. 
The primogenitive and due of birth, 
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
But by degree, stand in authentic place? 
Take but degree away, untune that string, 

no And, hark, what discord follows! 

The reader is already aware, as Verplanck was not, 
that "the unity and married calm of states" had 
its origin, almost its verbal expression, in Chaucer 
and Boethius. But Chaucer and Boethius say 
nothing about the destruction of "peaceful com- 
merce" that follows upon the disturbance of unity 
and calm. Hooker and Shakespeare do. 

In the paragraph already quoted from the Polity, 
when a "kingdom is rightly ordered . . . after a 
law is once published it presently takes effect far 
and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto." 
A few pages further on (I, x, 12-13) Hooker proceeds 
to the consideration of the Law of Nations — "which 



174 Shakespeare and Hooker 

toucheth all such several bodies politic, so far forth as 
one of them hath public commerce with another. ^^ We 
are not satisfied, says he, with the mutual participa- 
tion of civil society, . . . "but we covet to have a kind 
of society and fellowship even with all mankind; . . . 
yea, to be in league of amity with them: and this not 
only /or traffick's sake, or to the end that when many 
are confederated each may make the other more 
strong," but for knowledge sake. . . . But, as the 
laws of reason have not been "sufficient to direct 
each particular person in all his affairs and duties;" 
and, as the accessory "laws of polity and regi- 
ment . . . are not able now to serve, when men's 
iniquity is so hardly restrained within any tolerable 
bounds: in like manner, the national laws of natural 
commerce between societies of that former and better 
quality might have been other than now, when nations 
are so prone to offer violence, injury and wrong. . . . 
The strength and virtue of that law is such that no 
particular nation can lawfully prejudice the same 
by any their several laws and ordinances." ^ 

If Shakespeare, in his substitution of "specialty 
of rule" and "degree" for the Chaucerian and 
Boethian Love, was in any way indebted to Hooker's 
exposition of natural law, to his imagery of the 
"celestial spheres" forgetting "their wonted mo- 
tions," to his phraseology, of "tenure and course," 
order, "season," and for the striking detail of the 
wreck — ^which Hooker derives from Arnobius, — if 
1 Polity, 156, 198, 199. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 175 

he is Indebted to Hooker for the exposition of laws 
in the physical world, is It unlikely that he should 
be impressed also by Hooker's exposition of law 
in the social, political, and International world, and 
so pass to illustration by detail In somewhat similar 
strain? Let us take the steps In order and compare. 

Hooker, in the lines following his imaginary wreck 
of the universe, points the lesson not with a common- 
place drawn from the Pythagorean and Platonic 
harmony of the spheres, but with the figure of the 
"untuned string:" "See we not plainly that obedi- 
ence of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of 
the whole world? Notwithstanding with nature it 
Cometh sometimes to pass as with art . . . He 
that striketh an Instrument with skill may cause 
notwithstanding a very unpleasant sound, if the string 
whereon he striketh be uncapable of harmony." ^ 
So, also, Shakespeare In lines 109-10, but substituting 
degree among moral agents for obedience to the 
law of nature: "Take but degree away. Untune that 
string, And, hark, what discord follows." 

Hooker proceeds Immediately to the importance 
of form, kind, order, degree In the fulfilment of law 
not only by natural agents as "sociable parts united 
into one body," but by voluntary as well — "Things 
natural . . . observe their certain laws" when "they 
keep those forms which give them their being . . . 
seeing the kinds of their operations are both con- 
stantly and exactly framed according to the several 
1 Polity, 158. 



176 Shakespeare and Hooker 

ends for which they serve. . . . The natural gen- 
eration ^ and process of all things receiveth order 
of proceeding from the settled stability of divine 
understanding. This appointeth unto them their 
kinds of working. . . . That law, the performance 
whereof we behold in things natural, is as it were an 
authentical or an original draught in the bosom of 
God himself." The second kind of law is of volun- 
tary agents in societies. "Consider the angels of 
God associated, and their law is that which dis- 
poseth them as an army, one in order and degree 
above another ^ So also with men, who are "next in 
degree" to the angels, and "grow by degrees till 
they come at length to be even as the angels them- 
selves are" and who have their "laws politic, or- 
dained for external order and regiment . . . unto 
the common good for which societies are instituted." 
Hooker then passes, as in the citation made above, to 
the third kind of law as touching "all states," the 
desire for "league of amity" between them, for 
confederation of strength and for "traffick's sake," 
and to the baneful effect upon "national laws of 
natural commerce" when "nations . . . offer vio- 
lence. Injury, and wrong." ^ In like manner but in 
slightly altered sequence Shakespeare passes in 

^The passage beginning "The natural generation" and end- 
ing "in the bosom of God himself" is a close paraphrase of 
Boethius IV, Prose vi, 45-55; but not as translated by Chaucer; 
nor did Chaucer take it over in his Troilus and Criseyde. 

'Polity, 159, 160, 163, 164, 166, 188, 198. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 177 

lines 98 to iii from the natural to the social: "The 
unity and married calm of states;" the deracination 
"from their fixure;" the shaking of degree "which 
is the ladder to all high designs;" "the communities" 
and "brotherhoods in cities," and "peaceful com- 
merce from dividable shores," losing their "authen- 
tic place;" the untuned string, the discord. 

Here again the resemblance may be accounted for 
as the result of natural procedure in logical and 
imaginative discourse, as pursued by men of the 
same literary atmosphere. But the joint evidence 
of similarity in general sequence and specific detail 
begins to assume a cumulative character pointing 
to more than coincidence. 

Still other details call for consideration. In line 
107, above — "Prerogative of age, crowns, scep- 
tres" — ^would naturally occur to Ulysses; but I 
have frequently wondered why, in this enumeration 
of the disasters attending disregard of degree in its 
broader significance, Ulysses should have bothered 
his head — poetically, logically, or historically — about 
the fate of "degrees in schools." His creator may be 
pardoned for recollecting that there are such things 
as collegiate degrees; but the item seems far-fetched, 
and ridiculously specific. Is it mere coincidence 
that Hooker, too, speaks not only of collegiate com- 
munities and degrees, but of the prerogative of 
seniority and the sceptre of discipline.'' That toward 
the end of his Preface, only three sections before 
the illustration of the "kingdom rightly ordered," 



178 Shakespeare and Hooker 

he should have said: "Therefore I wish that your- 
selves [Puritans objecting to permanent ranks 
among ministers] did well consider how opposite 
some of your positions are unto the state of collegiate 
societies, whereon the two universities consist. 
Those degrees which their statutes hind them to take are 
by your laws taken away.^"* ? That he should have 
made a special point of the Inconvenience likely to 
be entailed upon the "seniors" of those universities 
by the abolition of collegiate orders? and that he 
should have emphasized, at the end of the section, 
the ticklish position of "superiors that will not have 
the sceptre of discipline to rule over them;" and the 
"perilous consequence ... if the present state 
of the highest governor placed over us, if the quality 
and disposition of our nobles. If the orders and laws 
of our famous universities" be upset? ^ If the re- 
semblances already suggested between this speech 
of Ulysses and the first book of the Polity are not a 
mere matter of coincidence we must credit Shake- 
speare with the habit of reading the preface of a 
book as well as the book itself. 

At first glance the "singular" similarity to which 
Verplanck has given us the clue seems to cease at 
this point. In the continuation of the speech of 
Ulysses, the first four lines find their immediate 
motivation in Boethius and Chaucer — 

no Each thing meets 

In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters 
1 Polity, 129, 130, 142. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 179 

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores 
And make a sop of all this solid globe. 

"All that now loveth a-sonder sholde lepe" and the 
sea should "drench earth," says Chaucer. "Alle 
thinges that now loven hem to-gederes wolden 
maken a bataile continuely," says Boethius; and 
the sea would "streche his boundes up-on the erthes." 
And the next five lines — 

Strength should be lord of imbecility, 
115 And the rude son should strike his father dead. 
Force should be right; or rather right and wrong, 
Between whose endless jar justice resides. 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 

may be an elaboration of the thought presented in 
the same sources. "Amonges thise thinges sitteth 
the heye maker, king and lord, . . . lawe and wys 
juge, to don equltee," says Boethius.^ But the 
"right and wrong" no longer "judged rightly" by 
**the faculty of reason," and "the Laws of well- 
doing which are the dictates of Reason" are also 
definitely emphasized in Hooker's sequence of dis- 
cussion. 

For the succeeding depiction of moral chaos, how- 
ever, and for the psychology underlying, we find no 
inspiration in Boethius and Chaucer. Ulysses 
prognosticates : 

Then everything includes itself in power, 
120 Power into will, will into appetite; 

' See Appendix E. 



i8o Shakespeare and Hooker 

And appetite, an universal wolf, 
So doubly seconded with will and power, 
Must make perforce an universal prey, 
And last eat up himself. 

It has been suggested that for the thought not only 
of the whole section (lines 1 14-124), but of the pre- 
ceding — the disregard of "degrees in schools," and 
"prerogative of age" the metaphor of musical dis- 
cord — and of what follows about the "neglection of 
degree. . . . That by a pace goes backward, in a 
purpose It hath to climb," Shakespeare has had re- 
course to Plato's account in the Republic of the evils 
of democracy and the tyranny that supervenes. 
Some of the parallelisms in language as well as 
thought are, indeed, not Insignificant. The Re- 
public, moreover, was accessible In Latin and French, 
in continental disquisitions, and In an English ex- 
position, in Shakespeare's time. Plato's theory of 
democracy and its dangers was common property 
through various English treatises as well, and had 
become in political conversation a platitude. Simi- 
larly accessible were his psychology — of appetite, 
the spirited element, the reason. And so, too, was 
Aristotle's restatement of it with the emphasis upon 
will; and the ethics of both philosophers In which 
justice appears as the harmonizer of faculties political 
as well as individual.^ 

If, however, Shakespeare was deriving not merely 

* See Appendix I. 



Shakespeare and Hooker i8i 

from the material of every-day discourse, but from 
the printed page, no more accessible, comprehensive, 
or probable source for all this can be surmised than 
the first book of the Polity. The resemblance be- 
tween the two writers in regard to ethics and psy- 
chology is no less striking than in the sequence and 
details already mentioned. Continuing the discus- 
sion of form, kind, order, degree among natural 
agents, angels and men. Hooker, who frequently 
cites Plato and Aristotle, says (I, vi, 5) — "Education 
and Instruction are the means . . . to make our 
natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner 
able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and 
evil. ... It Is In our power, ''^ he continues, "to 
leave the things we do undone. . . . Choice there 
is not, unless the thing which we take be so In our 
power that we might have refused and left it. . . . 
To choose is to will one thing before another. And 
to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of 
[i. e., the power over] that which they see to be good. 
Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. 
And the light of that eye is reason. So that two 
principal fountains there are of action, knowledge 
and will." Knowledge is of "good and evil" (right 
and wrong); will makes the "choice." "Will . . . 
differeth greatly from that inferior natural desire 
which we call Appetite. The object of Appetite is 
whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object 
of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to 
seek. . . . Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and the 



1 82 Shakespeare and Hooker 

Will is Appetite^s controller; . . . neither is any- 
other desire termed properly Will, but that where 
Reason and Understanding, or the show of Reason, 
prescribeth the thing desired." Where ^'that good 
which is sensible provoketh Appetite^ and Appetite 
causeth action, Reason being never called to coun- 
sel, . . . such actions are'*'' no longer ''Ho be counted 
voluntary. . . . Reason is the director of man's Will 
by discovering in action [i. e., in the having or doing 
that constitutes Power] what is good. For the 
Laws of well-doing are the dictates of Reason." In 
other words where reason is disregarded, law ceases 
to exist; and where law, ruling through degree of 
kind and function, as Hooker expounds, has ceased 
to exist, the order of society is turned topsy-turvy. 
For laws politic presume '"''man to he in regard of his 
depraved mind little better than a wild beast J^ ^ This 
is the "wolf" of Ulysses; and the climax reached by 
Ulysses is that of Hooker: by progressive absorp- 
tion — power swallowing everything, will swallowing 
power, appetite swallowing will — all Is included 
"into appetite. And appetite, an universal wolf. . . . 
Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat 
up himself." 

Let us now consider the resemblance In political 
doctrine between Shakespeare and Hooker. In the 
closing lines of his discourse (124-137) Ulysses re- 
turns to the particular contention, the importance 

* Polity, 168, 169, 170, 171, 188. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 183 

of degree in a government by law, the specialty of 
rule with which he opened — 

Great Agamemnon, 
125 This chaos, when degree is suffocate, 

Follows the choking; etc. 

The classical doctrine of degree was no less material 
of contemporary conversation for Shakespeare than 
the ethics and psychology of which I have spoken. 
But if Shakespeare had recourse to printed authority, 
Hooker's page which is saturated with Aristotle, 
as is Aristotle's with Plato, would answer his pur- 
pose as well as the originals or translations of them; 
,or as well as the writings of any by whom the doc- 
trine had been popularized and applied to early 
Christian, mediaeval, or modern conditions — St. 
Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Castiglione, Sir 
Thomas Elyot. Better in fact, for Shakespeare's 
conception of degree is not, like Plato's, Aristotle's, 
the Italians', and Elyot's, based upon the tradition 
of aristocratic caste, but, like that of Hooker, upon 
merit and function. 

Shakespeare does not, as some have thought, sub- 
stitute degree — "the specialty of rule" — for law. 
He conceives of law and degree precisely as does 
Hooker. Law is the rule itself by which nature, 
society and states are held in order. Degree is the 
special instrumentality by means of which that rule 
is made effective. "That which doth assign unto 
each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the 



184 Shakespeare and Hooker 

force and power, that which doth appoint the form 
and measure, of working, the same we term a Law," 
says Hooker. "We term any kind of rule or canon, 
whereby actions are framed a law." ^ Degree, or 
"the specialty of rule," according to Hooker, is the 
series of "kinds" or "orders" — in nature, human 
society, and among the angels — to which law has 
assigned special functions for the harmonious ful- 
filment of its purpose. The series implies grades of 
relative superiority; but the function of each grade 
is relative to the capacity of the agents employed. 
And with Hooker, as we have seen, capacity of 
reason and of judgment develops with education. 
Degree, for Shakespeare as for Hooker, is that by 
means of which law distributes power and measure 
to the workings of nature and of society. Law rules 
the machine; degree is the series of cogs: the special 
instrumentality of rule. "Consider the angels," 
Hooker poetically exclaims, illustrating his doctrine 
of degree by the "corporation" of those who "have 
not disdained to profess themselves our 'fellow- 
servants:'" "Consider the angels associated, and 
their law is that which disposeth them as an army, 
one in order and degree above another." And, three 
pages further down, "Men, if we view them in their 
spring, are at the first without understanding or 

* Polity, 150, 154: the pages immediately preceding those in 
which Shakespeare would find the analogy of the celestial spheres, 
employed by Ulysses in his exemplification of "the specialty of 
rule." 



Shakespeare and Hooker 185 

knowledge at all. Nevertheless from this utter 
vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at 
length to be even as the angels themselves are." 
And, a little later: "To devise laws which all men 
shall be forced to obey none but wise men shall be 
admitted. Laws are matters of principal conse- 
quence; men of common capacity and but ordinary 
judgment are not able (for how should they?) to 
discern what things are fittest for each kind and 
state of regiment." In other words "degree" as 
with Shakespeare is "the specialty of rule," "the 
ladder to all high designs." It is not rule or law; 
nor on the other hand a series of social ranks in 
which, regardless of capacity, the position of the 
individual is fixed. In political society men "give 
their common consent all to be ordered by some 
whom they shall agree upon."^ 

When degree of due fitness and function under the 
law is suffocate, chaos, according to Shakespeare's 
Ulysses, "follows the choking:" 

And this neglectlon of degree is It 
That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose 
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd 
130 By him one step below, he by the next. 
That next by him beneath; so every step, 
Exampled by the first pace that is sick 
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever 
Of pale and bloodless emulation; 

1 Polity, 163, 166, 193, 190. 



l86 Shakespeare and Hooker 

135 And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, 
Not her own sinews. 

In similar tone Hooker, in the Preface to his book, 
admonishes Puritans who, objecting to orders and 
degrees in the Church of England and especially the 
requirement of license from a civil magistrate, abet 
the Barrowists in wrecking discipline: "The changes," 
says he, "likely to ensue through all states and voca- 
tions within this land, in case your desire should 
take place, must be thought upon." And in a passage 
which we have already quoted in part: "What other 
sequel can any wise man imagine hut this, that having 
first resolved that attempts for discipline without su- 
periors are lawful, it will follow in the next place to he 
disputed what may he attempted against superiors 
which will not have the sceptre of that discipline to rule 
over them?" ^ The sequel is that of Shakespeare's 
"neglection of degree." 

I have said that the consentaneity of Shakespeare 
with Hooker is widely distributed through the works 
of the former. As regards the doctrine of degree, 
of aristodemocracy, of nohlesse ohlige, we have found 
it not only in Troilus and Cressida but in The Mer- 
chant of Venice (1594-6), All's Well that Ends Well 
(i 595-1602), Henry V (1599), and in Sonnet 66 of 
about 1602. The repudiation of the divine right of 
kings appears in Richard H (1595-7), in other his- 
torical plays, and in Macbeth (1605-6); the distrust 

1 Polity, 128, 142. 



Shakespeare and Hooker 187 

of mob rule and flat democracy, In the historical 
plays again, in JuHus Caesar (i 599-1600), Coriolanus 
(1609), and The Tempest (161 1); equality before 
the law and the supremacy of justice In Richard II, 
Henry V, Measure for Measure (1603-4); justice in 
international affairs. In Henry V and Troilus and 
Cressida. The dignity of the individual and the 
rights of the poor are emphasized In many of the 
sonnets, in Hamlet (1602-4), i^ Lear (1604-6), and 
many other plays. From the citation of further 
parallels exemplifying the sympathy of Shakespeare 
with Hooker In respect of these and other phases 
of political and social theory I refrain lest I unduly 
repeat passages from one or the other already quoted 
in full. 

I may, however, be pardoned, if I quote again 
those lines from Hamlet in which Shakespeare makes 
vocal the democratic murmur of his day, and call 
attention to a passage in Hooker. "For who," says 
the Prince of Denmark, subconsciously philosophiz- 
ing, 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of tinie, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes. . . 

For these lines, those who delight to trace Shake- 
speare to his sources have, so far as I know, found no 
parallel. Any such I venture to refer without preju- 



1 88 Shakespeare and Hooker 

dice or expression of opinion to Hooker, where in 
treating of laws and offices (I, x, 9), he says: "If 
the helm of chief government be in the hands of a 
few of the wealthiest, then laws providing for con- 
tinuance thereof must make the punishment of 
contumely and wrong offered unto any of the com- 
mon sort sharp and grievous, that so the evil may be 
prevented whereby the rich are most likely to bring 
themselves into hatred with the people, who are not 
wont to take so great offence when they are excluded 
from honours and offices as when their persons are 
contumeliously trodden upon." 

So much concerning political consentaneity. The 
resemblances accumulate when we compare the 
views of poet and divine touching questions ethical 
and psychological. Though not precisely in the 
same language, still with similar eloquence of con- 
viction Hooker, as well as Shakespeare, teaches that 
"there is some soul of goodness In things evil. Would 
men observingly distil It out;" that "there Is nothing 
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so;" that 
"our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped 
them not; and our crimes would despair if they were 
not cherished by our virtues;" that "value dwells 
not in particular will;" that "no man Is the lord of 
anything . . . Till he communicate his parts to 
others;" that man is "a beast no more — If the chief 
good and market of his time Be but to sleep and 
feed;" that by "discourse of reason" sound knowl- 
edge is attained, the will conducted, and the affec- 



Shakespeare and Hooker 189 

tions or forms of appetite controlled; that God "gave 
us not That capability and godlike reason 7o fust 
In us unused," though oftentimes the painfulness 
of knowledge or "some craven scruple of thinking 
too precisely on the event" may cause the will to 
shrink and decline the object that is good. No less 
eloquently than Hamlet has Hooker apostrophized 
man, noble In reason, Infinite In faculties, "in form 
and moving how express and admirable! in action 
how like an angel! in apprehension how like a 
god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of ani- 
mals!" 

Parallels of this nature, though I am not unaware 
that masters from Plato to Montaigne had antici- 
pated our two Elizabethans in the expression of one 
or another thought, I have relegated to an appendix 
for the benefit of those who may be curious.-' But 
such readers I would remind that, in what Is given 
there or what has already been quoted here, it is no 
part of my intent to prove deliberate dependence of 
the poet upon the divine. I am aiming merely to 
show that the Shakespeare who was acquainted with 
several of the founders of colonial liberty in America 
was also Intimately acquainted with the philosophy 
which their wisest entertained; that he was not only 
sympathetic with their purposes but of like mind 
with the master to whom they were Indebted for 
their political principles — the master from whom 

1 Appendix J. 



190 The Heritage in Common: 

our American forefathers consciously or uncon- 
sciously derived much that was essential to the erec- 
tion of that "free popular state" whose "inhabitants 
should have no government putt upon them but 
by their own consente." 



England^ America^ France 191 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE HERITAGE IN COMMON: ENGLAND, AMERICA, 
FRANCE 

The liberty we enjoy today is what it is, primarily 
because Southampton, Sandys and the Ferrars, 
Selden, Brooke, Coke, Sackvllle, Cavendish and 
other patriots were Englishmen; because Gates, 
De la Warr, and Strachey, Dale and Wyatt, the 
Bradfords, Brewsters, and Dudleys, willing to Ven- 
ture, were Englishmen; because in the decades when 
England was awakening to the perils of arbitrary 
rule at home, these contemporaries of Hooker and 
Shakespeare established In the New World an ad- 
vance guard of English rights. From Shakespeare's 
England in an age when such civil and political 
rights were, with the possible exception of the 
United Netherlands, elsewhere unrealized, proceeded 
our common law, our trial by jury, our system of 
representative government, our free institutions. 
It is to Shakespeare's England that the Americans 
of the colonies owed — that Americans of today, of 
whatever stock they be, owe — the historic privi- 
leges that have made the New World a refuge for 
the oppressed and a hope for humanity. The sapling 
of civil liberty had drawn vigor from deep roots of 



192 The Heritage in Common: 

Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman consciousness, and for 
centuries had strained steadily upward. In the 
seventeenth century it towered as an oak, and shel- 
tered with its far-spread arms the Britons at home 
and Britons in America. 

The thoughts that were common to Hooker and 
Shakespeare and Shakespeare's friends, the dream 
of the well-ordered state where merit shall govern, 
and not the favoritism of kings or their fabled di- 
vinity, — the ideals of individual worth, duty, and 
patriotism, were common to our English forefathers, 
the planters of Virginia, the pilgrims of the May- 
flower and Plymouth, the puritans of Massachusetts 
Bay. Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare 
currunt. The political instincts that, in the dawn 
of autocratic stress, were the heart and implicit 
moral of Shakespeare's histories and tragedies are 
the principles that pulsing into motive nerved the 
will and steeled the sinew of his younger contem- 
poraries. The political freedom that, between 1609 
and 1640, our English ancestors of Virginia and New 
England put into form and practice is the political 
freedom for which our grand-uncles of old England 
fought from 1642 to 1649, nay, to 1689. Brad- ! 
ford and Brewster, Winthrop and Endlcott, John 
Cotton and Roger Williams, Harvard and Thomas ■ 
Hooker, of New England, Alexander Whitaker, j 
Clayborne, Bennett, and Nathaniel Bacon, of Vir- 
ginia, belong to the history of English ideals no less 
than to that of America. And Hampden, Pym, 



England, America, France 193 

Cromwell, Milton and Bunyan, and the Seven 
Bishops who defied the second James, were but 
brothers to our English sires in New England. 
Brothers of the same blood and ultimate ideal were 
also the royalists of Virginia. Their conservatism 
and devotion to a lost cause rendered them none 
the less certain "in the free air of the New World 
to develop into uncompromising democrats and 
fierce defenders of their own privileges." 



Of all these Englishmen of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, whether of the Old World or the New, there 
was a heritage in common. One language welded of 
the Old English, Scandinavian, Gallic and Latin: 
manly, direct, sober and natively consistent; un- 
fettered, experimental, acquisitive; from emergency 
to emergency shaped according to the need, incom- 
parable in riches ever cumulative. One race, one 
nation, one blood infused of many strains and diverse 
characteristics: of the Anglo-Saxon, the personal 
independence and native conservatism; of the Nor- 
man, the martial genius, equity, political vision, 
masterful and unifying authority, — and of the Nor- 
man, the chivalry, the romance and culture, too; 
of the Celt, intermingling with these in the centuries 
that flowed into Shakespeare, a current of aspira- 
tion, poignant passion, poetic imagination — stirring 
the blood but not intoxicating the Anglo-Norman 



194 The Heritage in Common: 

reason. One custom, of spiritual ideal but of tried 
experience — practical rather than speculative, dis- 
trustful of veering sentiment, slowly crystallizing 
into the stability of a national consciousness: a cus- 
tom of individual prerogative and of obedience to 
the authority that conserves the prerogative; of fair 
play and equality of opportunity, of fearless speech 
for the right, and simple for the common weal; a 
custom making for popular sovereignty, for alle- 
giance, for national honor in national fair dealing, 
for the might that is right; one custom, mother of 
the law. One common law: the progressive expres- 
sion "of a free people's needs and standards of jus- 
tice;" the outgrowth of social conditions, deriving 
its authority not from enactment of sovereign mon- 
arch or sovereign legislature but from the aggregate 
social will — the law of precedent and of the righteous 
independence of the courts. 

Long before Magna Charta features of this law, 
this conservatively expanding charter of liberties 
and duties, are distinguishable in the procedure of 
our forefathers in England. From the days of Ethel- 
bert to those of Alfred, and from Alfred to Edward 
the Confessor, for four and a half centuries before 
the Conquest this law, hardly if at all affected by 
foreign corpus or code, had been "gathering itself 
together out of the custom of" the independently 
developing Anglo-Saxon. This sanction "the Con- 
queror, who claimed the crown by virtue of English 
law and professed to rule by English law," repeat- 



England, America, France 195 

edly bound himself to observe, "and he handed 
down the tradition to all who came after him." * 
This law of national precedent, further developed 
under Henry II and systematically expounded by 
Glanvil, or by some clerk under his direction, grew 
into the Great Charter of King John with its equal 
distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen, 
and its restriction of monarchical prerogative. "The 
king," writes Bracton in the days of John's successor, 
Henry III, "must not be subject to any man but 
to God and the law; for the law makes him king. 
Let the king therefore give to the law what the law 
gives to him, dominion and power; for there is no 
king where will, and not law, bears rule." ^ The 
relation of this English law of custom to the general 
nature of law as set forth in the civil code of the 
Roman system, Bracton expounds; but from that 
system the peculiar English law is not derived. Ex- 
panding through Fortescue and Littleton this Eng- 
lish law is the common law of Coke; and by the Vir- 
ginia charter of 1606, probably drafted by Coke, the 
rights of the common law were conferred upon the 
colonists of the New World. 

For these Englishmen of the "sceptred isle" and 
of the untllled wilderness of the west there had been 
one spirit energizing toward freedom — civil and 
religious; one charter of rights and obligations. Of 
political development there had been a continuous 

1 Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 114. 

2 The Laws and Customs of England, Bk. I, ch. viii. 



196 The Heritage in Common: 

history for eleven hundred years before England was 
planted in America. There had also been one lit- 
erature, as ancient and as noble, stirring in embers of 
racial tradition — a tradition of service and heroism 
and generous acceptance of fate; kindling to mirth 
and pity, humanity and reverence; leaping to flame 
in imagination and power; and, in the decades when 
first the English peopled "worlds In the yet un- 
formed Occident," attaining full glory in the zenith 
of Shakespeare. 

Not with those eleven hundred years ceased the 
oneness of the English heritage. For a period longer 
than that which has elapsed since the American 
branch of the Anglo-Saxon race has been a separate 
nation, the heritage was one. One hundred and 
forty years have succeeded our declaration of in- 
dependence. Through the hundred and seventy 
which preceded, the history of Britain was the 
continuing property of our forefathers of Virginia 
and New England. Not only Hampden and Crom- 
well and the Ironsides, but Chatham, Holland, 
Burke, and Sir Philip Francis, were compatriots of 
the colonials. The admirals of the fleet, Blake, 
Vernon, Anson, Hawke, were our admirals. It was 
for the nascent empire of our British and British- 
American forefathers that they won the supremacy 
of the sea. The victories of Marlborough, Clive's 
conquest of India, Wolfe's conquest of Canada — to 
which the young George Washington contributed 
the services of his still British sword — were glories 



England, America, France 197 

not of a foreign race but of our race. For four gen- 
erations we have been an independent people. But 
for six generations before that the intellectual and 
spiritual strivings of our British compatriots toward 
truth and freedom were those of the British in 
America. Harrington, Algernon Sidney, Locke, 
Hume and Berkeley were ours. And in literature, 
Milton and Bunyan, Dryden and Pope, Swift, 
Addison, Gray and Goldsmith were our poets and 
essayists. Such was the birthright of our British 
forefathers in the American colonies. True it is, that 
in legal procedure they preferred, during the years 
of primitive social conditions, the appeal to divine 
law and the law of reason or of human nature, as 
expounded by Hooker and his school, to any kind of 
law positive; and it is true that, within the field of 
positive law, they took more kindly to the civil 
which derives authority from enactment than to the 
common which derives from precedent. But when 
they reached "the stage of social organization which 
the common law expressed," they were only too glad 
to claim that birthright also, as conveyed by various 
early charters.^ And upon such right they based 
their appeal for civil liberty. 

Not at all with 1776 did the English heritage cease 
to be the same for the sons of England at home and 
over the seas. In their resistance to taxation without 

^ Nathan Abbott, Characteristics of the Common Law, in 
St. Louis Congress, Vol. II, 283 — from Dr. Reinsch, Bulletin 
Univ. Wisconsin, no. 31. 



198 The Heritage in Common: 

representation, to coercion by force, to the Acts of 
Trade, the colonists in America were supported by- 
Fox and the elder Pitt, by Shelburne, Camden, 
Burke, Rockingham, and all true patriots at 
home. Americans were asserting their rights as 
Englishmen under charter and common law. "Do 
not break their charter; do not take away rights 
granted them by the predecessors of the Crown!" 
cried members of the English House of Commons. 
Pitt "pointed out distinctly that the Americans were 
upholding those eternal principles of political justice 
which should be to all Englishmen most dear, and 
that a victory over the colonies would be of ill omen 
for English liberty, whether in the Old World or the 
New." Speaking of the tea-duty Lord North had 
asseverated, "I will never think of repealing it until 
I see America prostrate at my feet." To this Colonel 
Barre retorted, "Does any friend of his country really 
wish to see America thus humbled? In such a situa- 
tion she would serve only as a monument of your arro- 
gance and your folly. For my part the America I 
wish to see is America increasing and prosperous, 
raising her head in graceful dignity, with freedom 
and firmness asserting her rights at your bar, vin- 
dicating her liberties, pleading her services, and 
conscious of her merit. This is the America that will 
have spirit to fight your battles, to sustain you when 
hard pushed by some prevailing foe. . . . Unless 
you repeal this law you run the risk of losing Amer- 
ica." In the House of Lords, three devoted de- 



England^ America, France 199 

fenders of American liberty were the Dukes of Port- 
land, Devonshire and Northumberland. They were 
descended from Henry Wriothesley, third earl of 
Southampton, the founder with Sir Edwin Sandys of 
the charter liberties of Virginia.^ In that House, 
protesting against the "Intolerable Acts" of 1774, 
the Duke of Richmond thundered, "I wish from the 
bottom of my heart that the Americans may resist, 
and get the better of the forces sent against them." 
Not the historical precedent of England or the 
political wisdom of her best "arrayed her in hostility 
to every principle of public justice which English- 
men had from time immemorial held sacred," but 
the perversity of an un-English prince and of his 
fatuous advisers. Bent upon thwarting the policy 
of reformers who would make the Commons more 
truly representative of the English people, upon 
destroying the system of cabinet government, and 
resuscitating the theory of divine right, these un- 
fortunates picked their quarrel with the American 
colonies. "For," as John Fiske shrewdly remarks, 
"if the American position that there should be no 
taxation without representation, were once granted, 
then It would straightway become necessary to admit 
the principles of parliamentary reform," and to call 
the liberals to power in England. A representation 
of the colonies in Westminster, though favored by 
some great Englishmen, might have been imprac- 
ticable; but if George III had listened to the elder 
1 Brown, Eng. Pol. in Va., 147. 



200 The Heritage in Common: 

Pitt and his followers, he would have recognized the 
right of American freemen to levy their own taxes, 
and the revolution would have been obviated. The 
would-be autocrat forced the issue in America and 
was defeated. If there had been no revolution in 
America there would have been a revolution in 
England, and the monarch would in all probability 
have been dethroned. The War of Independence 
reasserted for England as well as for America the 
political rights for which Englishmen, from the time 
of King John to that of James I, from the time of 
Hooker, Shakespeare, Sandys, Bradford, Winthrop. 
Sir Thomas Dale and Sir Francis Wyatt, to that of 
Cromwell, had contended. It confirmed the vic- 
tories of the Great Rebellion and of the Revolution 
of 1688. The younger Pitt denounced the war against 
the American colonies as "most accursed, wicked, 
barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical.'* 
And when Charles Fox heard that Cornwallis had 
surrendered at Yorktown, he leaped from his chair 
and clapped his hands. ^ The victory at Yorktown 
dissipated once for all the fatal delusion of divine 
prerogative. Those who conceived and carried 
through the American Revolution were Anglo-Saxons : 
Otis, Samuel and John Adams, Hancock, Henry, 
Richard Henry Lee, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington. 
The greatest of Americans was the greatest English- 
man of his age: Washington was but asserting against 

^ See John Fiske, The American Revolution, I, 26, 34, 35, 
40, 42, 45, 62, 93, 98, 100; II, 286. 



England, America^ France 201 

a despotic sovereign of German blood and broken 
English speech the prerogative of the Anglo-Saxon 
breed, the faith of his liberal brothers in England. 

PoHtical history has, indeed, worn its independent 
channel; but spirit and speech, letters, order of free- 
dom and control in the America of today are of the 
ancient blood and custom. 

Our Monroe doctrine is as old as Shakespeare's 
day: it is but Sir Edwin Sandys's "Where no govern- 
ment shall be putte upon them save by their own 
consente," adapted to the conditions of a new con- 
tinent. Our zeal for arbitration is but Hooker's 
desire for "an universal fellowship with all men." 
For our doctrine of the "freedom of the seas," Eng- 
land has consistently contended, and has been de- 
feated of her aim, only because the central autocracy 
of Europe has refused to concede a like "freedom 
of the land." Conspicuously ours, conspicuously 
theirs of modern England, as in the day of Hooker 
and Sandys, Selden and Coke, when it first attained 
full consciousness, is that which lies at the heart of 
all Shakespeare's utterance regarding individual 
prerogative — the due process of law: the law of prec- 
edent and fair play and righteous independence of 
the courts. "A great element of civil liberty" is 
this, wrote an eminent German jurist before the 
present German War, "and part of a real govern- 
ment of law which in its totality has been developed 
by the Anglican tribe alone." It was in the English 
Inns of Court that Winthrop, Bellingham, and 



202 The Heritage in Common: 

Dudley gained the rudiments of that common law; 
there, too, the Virginian leaders of bench and bar 
at the planting of the colony, and in her palmiest 
days; there, too, many of the signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. From the Atlantic to the 
Pacific this system of law "better suited to the 
needs of a free people and an advancing civilization 
than the civil, which obtained its historical form 
under an absolute empire," has been established by 
those who have inherited the Institutions of the 
England of the early seventeenth century. And 
still, three hundred years after our founding, "the 
resemblances between the common law In America 
and its parent In England are greater than the dif- 
ferences, and the differences are rather in degree 
than in kind."^ America still holds to the wisdom 
of her Shakespearian ancestors. 

II 

Much as we owe to monarchical France for her 
assistance during our War of Independence against 
her English rival for European and colonial su- 
premacy; much as we cherish the long-continued and 
unselfish amity of republican France, and similar as 
her devotion and ours to the creed of equal human 
dignity and equal Intellectual opportunity; sym- 

^ E. McClain, History of Law, 270; and Nathan Abbott, 
Characteristics of the Common Law, 274, 283, in St. Louis Con- 
gress, Vol. IL 



England, America, France 203 

pathetic as we are in democratic polity and ideal; 
and indissoluble as the bond with her in the sister- 
hood of free powers, — to say, as does a recent writer 
in one of our most dignified and authoritative Amer- 
ican periodicals, that "it was from the philosophers 
of the French Revolution that we learned the ideals 
of equal citizenship and republicanism," ^ is not 
only to invert the sequence of history but to mis- 
state a fundamental issue. To assert that "the 
ideas of Rousseau, much more than the political 
theories of the mother country, inspired us in our 
first efforts toward democratic liberty," is to dis- 
tort our relation with the one country from which 
we derive our political traditions, aspirations, and 
free institutions. The authors of our Declaration 
of Independence inherited not from Rousseau or 
any French philosopher but from their own ancestors 
and cousins, the liberal statesmen and political 
philosophers of England; and from their own colonial 
ancestors, by whom the principles of Anglo-American 
political theory had been developed before 1776 in 
the experience of the various colonial governments. 
The philosophers of the French Revolution learned 
the ideals of equal citizenship and republicanism 
from England; and the leaders of that revolution 
were inspired by the English Revolution of 1688 and 
the American of 1776. "There is no evidence to 
show that Rousseau's Contrat Social of 1762 was a 
force" at the time of the Declaration of Independ- 
* Arthur Bullard, Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1916, pp. 635-636. 



204 The Heritage in Common: 

ence; "and the doctrines ascribed to him were really 
those of Locke, who was the quarry from whom the 
Revolutionary fathers drew both thoughts and 
phrases." ^ "There is abundant evidence of the fact 
that Locke's Essays on Government were read and 
studied in the Revolutionary period." ^ Locke is 
continually quoted as final authority in their dis- 
cussions and writings. "Locke was the philosopher 
of the American Revolution, as he was of the Revolu- 
tion of 1688." ^ And since Locke was a student of 
Hooker, here again we go back to the germinating 
thought of Shakespeare's day. 

For Locke, the compact by which man passes out 
of a state of nature and governments come into ex- 
istence has two stages. First, the formation of a 
society, or commonwealth, each individual agreeing 
to surrender to it, not all his natural rights to life, 
liberty, and estate, but his single right of executing 
the law of nature and punishing offenses against 
that law. This agreement is perpetual and irrevo- 
cable. Second, the formation of institutions for the 
government of the commonwealth. By agreement 
with a dynasty or king or other ruler — monarchical, 
oligarchical or democratic — the commonwealth places 
authority in the hands of a government for the at- 
tainment of the ends of civil and political society. 

1 A. B. Hart, National Ideals, p. 98. 

^ A. C. McLaughlin, Social Compact, etc., in Am. Hist. Rev., 
V, 467, 468. 
» Ibid. 



England, America, France 205 

This is a contract between the commonwealth (con- 
stituted hy the social pact) and the ruler; and it is 
subject to revision by the commonwealth whenever 
organic change is necessitated for the common good. 
If the ruler override his prerogative, the contract is 
broken and the commonwealth absolved from its 
allegiance. Not the ruler is supreme, but the legisla- 
tive power; and even it is not absolute, but limited 
by fundamental and known laws.^ This was the 
doctrine by which our forefathers justified their 
revolt. Of course Locke knew that the state of 
nature was an assumption, and the social compact a 
fiction. But he was himself unable to disprove them 
and they served his purpose: to justify the Revolu- 
tion of 1688. 

According to Rousseau, on the other hand, by an 
original contract of society, which people emerging 
from a state of nature ought to have signed — but 
did not, the people would become sovereign. There 
should be no second stage, no contract between the 
people and a government, whether of king or any 
other ruler. The sovereign power of the people is 
"inalienable, indivisible, and it would seem, in- 
fallible, if you can only get the 'general will' truly 
expressed." The executive and judicial powers 
may be entrusted to agents who are creatures of the 
sovereign people. But the legislative power, which 

1 Frederick Pollock, History of the Science of Politics, pp. 29- 
3 1 ; Wm. A. Dunning, The Political Philosophy of John Locke, 
in Political Science Quarterly, XX, 232-233. 



2o6 The Heritage in Common: 

is absolute, cannot be delegated to representatives. 
It must remain in the hands of the people and be 
exercised by them alone. Since the people of any 
but a small country are too numerous to get together 
and legislate it is hard to see how in Rousseau's 
democracy they would be any better off than they 
were in a state of nature. And if such despots dele- 
gate their legislative sovereignty to chosen repre- 
sentatives — as Rousseau's disciples did — they but 
set up a Frankenstein in comparison with whose 
delegated despotism the state of nature would be 
paradise. Rousseau assumes conditions different 
from those which confronted our forefathers of 1776, 
and he develops his theory in a way that Locke 
would have considered subversive of all constitu- 
tional government. 

Locke was advocating a delegated and limited 
sovereignty In the hands of aristodemocracy; Rous- 
seau, "a democracy of the extremest type" whose 
sovereignty was absolute, and whose law-making 
power in the hands of all, no matter how Ignorant. 
With Locke "the contract was made mainly to 
protect property." With Rousseau, the same; but 
he "places property at the discretion of the sovereign 
people " — a doctrine which, though later retracted by 
him, was and is the basis of the wildest commun- 
ism. Thus Rousseau developed the doctrines of 
Locke, the thinkers of the Protectorate, and Hooker 
before them, Into "the destructive democracy and 
direct sovereignty of the people" which manifested 



England, America, France 207 

themselves In the excesses of 1789 to 1793.^ But if 
these English philosophers had not enunciated their 
premises, Rousseau's Contrat Social would never 
have been evolved. For Rousseau was a careful 
student of Locke; and in Locke there Is little that 
was not derived from the Immediately preceding 
political philosophy of England. It was also from 
the writers of the English Revolution of 1689, es- 
pecially Locke, and from observation of English 
constitutional government, that the philosophers of 
the French Revolution other than Rousseau de- 
rived most of the essentials of their democratic 
theory.^ 

Rousseau's Influence upon the America of 1776 
was practically nil. It pertains rather to the period 
succeeding 1789. The Idea of government as the 
creature of the sovereign people, with Its various 
corollaries, Is "much more In harmony with later 
American conditions [from 1830 on] than was the 
idea of Locke;" but the fact remains that "the 
American Revolution was fought out on the principle 
of the English philosopher and in recognition of the 
idea of a contract between king and people. . . . 
And the notion was too firmly rooted not to retain 
its hold long after the adoption of the Constitution."^ 

In the Constitution itself, and In the classical 

^W. Graham, English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to 
Maine, 56, 59, 66-7, 69. 

2 Gooch, Hist. Eng. Democratic Ideas, 357-8. 
* McLaughlin, Social Compact, etc., 479. 



2o8 The Heritage in Common: 

contemporaneous commentary on and in defense 
of it, the Federalist, there is indeed manifest the 
authority of Montesquieu's treatise on The Spirit 
of Laws, 1748; but "of the supposed influence of 
other continental authors such as Rousseau there 
are few direct traces in the Federal Constitution." 
With Montesquieu's doctrine of the separation of 
powers in the three coordinate departments of 
government our fathers were thoroughly acquainted. 
But it was from England that Montesquieu derived 
the doctrine: the England of Magna Charta, the 
Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights. "Contrasting 
the private as well as public liberties of Englishmen 
with the despotism of Continental Europe Montes- 
quieu had taken the Constitution of England as his 
model system, and had ascribed its merits to the 
division of legislative, executive, and judicial func- 
tions which he discovered in It, and to the system 
of checks and balances whereby its equilibrium 
seemed to be preserved." ^ Both the doctrine and 
the safeguard were, however, developed by Black- 
stone as well, whose Commentaries of 1765 were in 
the hands of all American publicists. And, so far 
as the separation of the legislative and executive 
powers is concerned, the doctrine had already been 
expounded by Locke,^ of whom Montesquieu and 
Blackstone were students. As to the Independence 
of the judicial power in case of conflict between the 

^ Bryce, American Commonweahh, I, 29. 
*0f Civil Government, Sees. 143-159. 



England, America, France 209 

law-making power and the executive, or of oppres- 
sion of the people by either, that is again and again 
impHed by Locke. "The legislative, or supreme 
authority, ... is bound to dispense justice, and 
decide the rights of the subject by promulgating 
standing laws, and known authorized judges." 
"Those who are united Into one body, and have a 
common established law and judicature to appeal 
to, with authority to decide controversies between 
them, and punish offenders, are In civil society with 
one another." Though he subsumes under the legisla- 
tive both the law-making and the judicial functions, 
he emphasizes always the Independence of the "judges 
with authority to appeal to." ^ What Montesquieu 
did was to clarify and systematize Locke's sugges- 
tion; and In the background of Locke's consciousness 
was always Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. 

Whatever Influence the French philosophers had 
upon the course of American political theory and 
practice was In general an Influence derived by 
France from England, and the major part of any 
such influence belongs, as we have seen, to the years 
succeeding 1789. What the framers of our Consti- 
tution did not owe to the initiative of English politi- 
cal and legal writers, they owed to their own experi- 
ence of the English common law, to "the experience 
of their colonial and state governments, and es- 
pecially, for this was freshest and most in point, 
the experience of the working of the State Constitu- 
* Civ. Gov., Sees, 136, 87, and 20, 21, 88, 240, 241. 



2IO The Heritage in Common: 

tions, framed at or since the date when the colonies 
threw off their English allegiance. . . . The Amer- 
ican Constitution is no exception to the rule that 
everything which has power to win the obedience 
and respect of men must have its roots deep in the 
past, and that the more slowly every institution has 
grown, so much the more enduring is it likely to 
prove. . . . Whatever success it has attained must 
be in large measure ascribed to the political genius, 
ripened by long experience, of the Anglo-American 
race. . . . There is little in this Constitution that 
is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as 
Magna Charta." ^ 

Neither the American appeal to the natural rights 
of man and the social compact, nor the doctrine of 
the separation of governmental powers, was bor- 
rowed from France. Nor was the idea of a federal 
union. That owes nothing to the experience of any 
Continental country: not to the leagues of ancient 
Greece; not to the modern Swiss cantons or the 
United Netherlands. It was the application of the 
"compact" philosophy of Locke to the exigency 
of American conditions at the American moment. 
"No one who has studied the primary material will 
be ready to assert that" the framers of the Consti- 
tution "consistently and invariably acted upon a 
single principle, that they were altogether conscious 
of the nature and Import of what was being done, 
and that they constantly spoke with logical ac- 
1 Bryce, Am. Com. I, 28-30. 



England^ America^ France 21 1 

curacy of the process. . . . But as far as one can 
find a consistent principle, it is this, that by compact 
of the most solemn and original kind a new political 
organization and a new indissoluble unit was being 
reared in America. The compact was sometimes 
spoken of as a compact between the individuals of 
America in their most original and primary charac- 
ter," constructing society anew; "sometimes it was 
looked on as a compact between groups of individ- 
uals," or States, "each group surrendering a portion 
of its self-control and forming a new order or unity 
just as society itself was constituted." ^ Here again 
not only does the "compact" theory come from 
Locke, but the hint of federal organization. For 
with the legislative and executive branches of gov- 
ernment he coordinates also what he calls the "fed- 
erative." And his remarks concerning the federa- 
tive function of government — "the power of war 
and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the trans- 
actions with all persons and communities without 
the Commonwealth" — are no less applicable to the 
inter-state relations of sovereign commonwealths 
or groups, entering the "more perfect Union," than 
to the relations of the more perfect Union, or federal 
Commonwealth in its totality, with foreign persons 
and communities.^ 

Far from being true that from the philosophers of 
the French Revolution "we learned the ideals of 

1 McLaughlin, Social Compact, etc., 472. 

2 Of Civil Government, Sees. 146-148. 



212 The Heritage in Common: 

citizenship and republicanism," and that "the ideas 
of Rousseau much more than the political theories 
of the mother country inspired us in our first efforts 
toward democratic liberty," not only we but the 
French themselves learned the political theories — 
legal equality, sovereignty of the people, participa- 
tion in government — and derived the inspiration of 
democratic liberty from English philosophers and 
from English and Anglo-American experience. It 
was Locke's theory, based, I repeat, upon that of 
Hooker and of his disciples, the founders of our first 
American charters of freedom; it was Locke's theory 
of the transformation of a state of nature into a civil 
state by a contract; Locke's theory of legal and 
political equality and of "a sovereignty of the 
people without too much of either sovereignty or 
people; ... of natural rights, but not too many of 
them, and of a separation of powers that was not too 
much of a separation;" Locke's theory of the right of 
resistance and the "appeal to Heaven, — " that jus- 
tified the English Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of 
Rights, and vivified the succeeding constitutional 
reforms. Locke's theory "was brought over, sup- 
ported by the practical Illustration of the accom- 
plished English Revolution, to the Continent, where 
many of its elements were taken up and developed to 
their logical limits" and beyond by [Rousseau and 
other] thinkers of France." ^ It was this same theory, 

^ Wm. A. Dunning, The Political Philosophy of John Locke, 
Pol. Sci. Quart., XX, 245. 



England J America, France 213 

as embodied in the American Declaration of Rights 
of 1774, and in that of Independence, and success- 
fully asserted by our Revolution, and more or less 
reflected in our Anglo-American Constitution, that 
inspired the thinking patriots of the French Revolu- 
tion. It was the same theory, tinctured with dan- 
gerous elaborations from Rousseau, that in 1789 in- 
spired the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. 
"Celebrated writers of France and England," says 
Jefferson, who was our minister plenipotentiary in 
Paris at the time, "had already sketched good prin- 
ciples on the subject of government; yet the American 
Revolution seems first to have awakened the thinking 
part of the French nation in general from the sleep 
of despotism in which they were sunk. The officers 
too, who had been to America, were mostly young 
men, less shackled by habit and prejudice, and more 
ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense, 
and feelings of common rights, than others. They 
came back with new ideas and impressions. The 
press, notwithstanding its shackles, began to dis- 
seminate them; conversation assumed new freedoms; 
politics became the theme of all societies, male and 
female, and a very extensive and zealous party was 
formed, which acquired the appellation of the 
Patriotic party, who, sensible of the abusive govern- 
ment under which they lived, sighed for occasions of 
reforming it." And again, "The appeal to the rights 
of man, which had been made in the United States, 
was taken up by France, first of the European na- 



214 ^^^ Heritage in Common: 

tions. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes 
and consequences in this world, that a two-penny 
duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part 
of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants." 
It was France, then a despotism, that lent us La- 
fayette, and Rochambeau and his six thousand 
Frenchmen, "to deal England a blow where she 
would feel it" — a loan ineffaceable from American 
memory. It was Lafayette, returning to France, im- 
bued with the spirit of American liberty, who in 1789, 
prepared, and proposed to the National Assembly, 
the Declaration of the Rights of Man. As a republic 
France is the younger sister of America. 

Of the triad of modern democracies, not only the 
French Republic but the union of free common- 
wealths, styled the British Empire, is, in order of 
historical realization, a younger sister of the United 
States of America. But the nursing mother of all 
three democracies was the liberal England of the 
seventeenth century, liberalism at death grips with 
the autocratic Stuarts. During the last ten years 
of the preceding century that liberalism, long con- 
ceived, had at last found constructive philosophical 
expression in the teachings of Richard Hooker. In 
Shakespeare it spoke as poetry; In Southampton 
and Sandys and the early colonists, as practical 
experiment. It was legally defended by Coke and 
Selden. By the popular revolts of that century, it 
achieved political acceptance. In the writings of 
Milton, Harrington, Algernon Sidney, and Locke. 



England, America, France 215 

it was re-created for new and greater effort. In the 
century that followed, that liberalism, embodied in 
the New Whigs at home and in the patriots of the 
American Revolution, set America free, assured free 
government for Great Britain and laid the founda- 
tions of a saner colonial and territorial polity for the 
future. Without the aid of the noble Frenchmen — 
Beaumarchais, Lafayette, Rochambeau, St. Simon, 
de Grasse, America might not have gained her in- 
dependence. The liberalism of those men, and of the 
French philosophers of political reform, was of 
mingled efflorescence; but the seed was in the liberal- 
ism of Hooker, of his disciples, Shakespeare's friends, 
and of Shakespeare himself. It flamed into first 
bloom with the Great Rebellion and the Common- 
wealth; into second, with the English Revolution and 
with Locke. By precept and example alike English 
hberalism, In the closing years of the eighteenth 
century, fired the leaders of the French Revolution 
and pointed the path for the French RepubUc of the 
present day. 



2i6 The Meaning jor Us Today 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MEANING FOR US TODAY 

Since the two-penny duty on tea and the shot 
heard round the world from Concord, a hundred and 
forty years have passed; and again inscrutable is the 
arrangement of causes and consequences in the his- 
tory of freedom. An assassin's bullet at Serajevo 
furnishes the military despotisms of Central Europe 
with a pretext to unleash east, west, and south, the 
hounds of territorial conquest and tyrannic lust. 
All proposals for conference are rejected by the 
Central Powers. Serbia, appealing to the bar of 
nations, is attacked by Austria abetted by Germany. 
Russia, neither desirous of war nor ready for it, still 
hoping for a peaceful settlement mobilizes to fulfil 
her treaty obligations by a powerless protege, and is 
countered by Germany armed to the teeth and ful- 
minating ultimatums at just the moment when her 
ally is disposed to conciliation. The carnage is let 
loose. That democratic France may be bled to the 
white, the solemn stipulations of international law 
and the sanctions of humanity are cast to the winds 
by the Central Powers; and Germany as an incident 
tramples Belgium, "the suffering servant of the 
great community of mankind," raped, mutilated. 



The Meaning for Us Today 217 

murdered, into the blood-stained earth. Britain, 
mindful of her pledges, her democratic faith, her 
duty to the larger liberty, springs to arms. The 
conflict involves Europe, Asia, Africa — the dominions 
in both hemispheres. To the powers of ruthless and 
unbridled might, now drunk with blood, the con- 
ventions of belligerents, the safeguards of non- 
combatants, the privileges of neutrals, are as nothing. 
Hell belches its poisonous gases and liquid fire. The 
flag of truce is desecrated; physicians abandon their 
wounded prisoners to the onslaught of infectious 
disease. The dying and the ministrants of the cross 
are marked for slaughter. Death, for no conceivable 
military advantage, is rained upon country-side, 
hamlet, unfortified town. Peasants and artisans — 
old men and women, helpless youths and maidens — 
are shot in squads or deported into slavery worse 
than death. Conspiracies are launched against 
peoples at peace and in amity. Hospital ships, 
neutral ships, American ships, noncombatant ships, 
unarmed and unwarned, are wantonly destroyed. 
Mother and babe and sister of mercy sink; the cry 
of the drowning is mocked. Terror walks the earth. 
Brutality rules the waves. 

Inscrutable indeed is the arrangement of causes 
and consequences in this world. A shot is fired in 
Bosnia; and the exultant autocracies wreck civiliza- 
tion. America protesting is flouted and attacked, 
driven to defend herself, — and accorded, at last, her 
chance to repay some fraction of the debt long due 



2l8 The Meaning for Us Today 

to France, her justification to rescue for England, 
to consecrate anew for herself, the Anglo-Saxon 
heritage. Questioning long, tried to the verge of 
patience and of honor, calmly deliberating, without 
rancor, or thought of personal gain other than the 
preservation of her independence and international 
prerogative, she ranges herself. Dignified and 
powerful beyond all dream of her English lovers 
and champions of 1769, America "with freedom 
and firmness, asserts her rights and vindicates her 
liberties" — not "at the bar of England," as that 
grand old colonel of the eighteenth century House 
of Commons had dreamed, nor of any earthly Power; 
not for herself alone but for mankind, at the bar 
of universal justice. With England and France and 
the free peoples of the world she has "the spirit to 
fight the battle," to sustain for posterity the cause 
of righteousness, peace, democracy, "hard pressed 
by a prevailing foe." 

The humanism of Shakespeare and Hooker and 
the founders of colonial liberty In America, the 
humanism of their colonial successors and of the 
Revolutionary perpetuators of Anglo-Saxon liberty, 
called for the well-rounded man. It called for the 
man of Intellect and vigor, emotionalized, and is- 
suing in freedom, — In character with its moral im- 
plications, standards, and responsibilities. It called 
for the character that should promote the humani- 
ties of life. The intellectual arrogance that dis- 



The Meaning for Us Today 219 

tinguishes the prevailing foe today found no place 
in Shakespeare's microcosm of human worth; nor 
has it found acceptance in Shakespeare's England 
or in any modern democracy, monarchical or re- 
publican, of civilized ideals. Civilized ideals are 
not skin-deep. Civilization is not a creature of 
self-interest or a vizard to force. It cannot be called 
into existence by a hundred and fifty years of highly 
specialized education, by inculcation of a goose- 
step, authority of a sabre, contempt of the poor in 
spirit and pure of heart. Civilization is born of per- 
sonal dignity and human sympathy. It is ingrained 
by centuries of kindly manners and consideration 
of the other and the weak. Its ideals are not as- 
sumed: they are the breath of its nostrils, the vision 
of its heart; they fill the spaces of the soul. The 
ideals of the prevailing foe today are those of their 
forbears, the Teutonic Knights of the Middle Ages 
who, "converting" the pagans of Prussia, despoiled 
them of honor and property, and bequeathed to 
them the heritage of morals and manners by which 
they are known among nations today. The ideals of 
the Teutonic Knights are realized anew in Northern 
France and Belgium, Serbia and Poland, in the year 
of grace, 1917. 

The cult of the acquisitive Intellect whether for 
the enforcement of a civilization in veneer or for the 
development of technical, professional, commercial, 
or political efficiency, cannot but abase the con- 
science and heart: cannot but entail the overlord- 



220 The Meaning for Us Today 

ship of power, with cunning as its satellite. The 
worship of mere intellect is absolutely repugnant to 
the Anglo-American conception of manhood — of 
truth, right, and fellow-feeling, commingled for the 
good of the individual and of society. Out of rela- 
tion to these, mentality becomes illogical, goes insane, 
perpetrates crime disgusting, unspeakable, attains 
its climax in suicide. 

Shakespeare and the founders of our liberty re- 
garded with reprobation the Machiavellianism of 
their day, that the end justifies the means: the end 
— the pagan glory of the state, nay of the Prince; 
the means — the exaltation of the expedient over 
the right. With like reprobation, they would, if 
living now, regard a dynastic philosophy by which 
in a certain quarter of the globe intellect has been 
fostered as intellect-for-greed, and federalized as 
intellect-for-power, to the suppression of Individual 
liberty In action and opinion, the suppression of the 
Individual moral code, the suppression of spon- 
taneous and enlightened sympathy, and of a self- 
ordered and self-governing national conscience. In 
the Anglo-American consciousness there can be 
found no condonation for a state-craft by which 
intellect-for-power has been apotheosized; for an 
educational priest-craft by which war has been 
ritualized as the highest activity of the state; no 
palliation for national servility to the right of the 
state alone — to a right divine of a state that is law 
unto itself, and therefore above Law. Where the 



The Meaning for Us Today 221 

sophistry of intellect deploys in a void, its expedi- 
ency, its "Necessity," is self-evoked and self-created. 
When that state wrecks "the married calm of 
states," every instrument of success becomes a 
legitimate weapon, and the frightfulness of modern 
scientific ingenuity deploys in the flesh. Where 
there is no divinity but that of the coterie, oligarchy 
or dynastic house, that calls itself the state, there 
is no divinity of universal justice and universal grace, 
and therefore no humanity. In such a nation, there 
is developed a condition of political psychology 
incomprehensible to the rest of mankind. Its Neces- 
sity justifies a deliberate reversion to barbarism, a 
carnival of blood and lies, a sniveling hypocrisy 
that would fail to hoodwink the veriest imbecile in 
any of God's asylums of the free. That such subter- 
fuge should convince those who have inherited the 
ill-gotten gains of Frederick II and of Bismarck 
does not surprise. That it should delude the coun- 
trymen of Luther, of Goethe, is a portent. Luther 
was not a Prussian, Goethe was not a Prussian. 
The heart of the reformer for whom justification 
was in faith, the heart of the noblest humanist of 
the latter age — if a throb still stir those hearts, it 
is of revulsion that their Germany should be under 
the heel of the Junker. 

Shakespeare's ideal state is, as I have tried to 
show, a state where freemen render service, each 
in his due degree, and each protected In his service 
by common interest and right. "Every subject's 



222 The Meaning for Us Today 

duty Is the king's; but every subject's soul is his 
own." Shakespeare's state, in its relation with other 
states, Is bounded by legal sanction and regulated 
by Justice. His great contemporary, the philos- 
opher of that patriotic movement from which 
America derived its ideals of individual and national 
liberty and of fraternity with mankind, was of like 
opinion. Of the Law of Nations, Richard Hooker 
had written, "There Is no reason that any one com- 
monwealth of itself should to the prejudice of an- 
other annihilate that whereupon the whole world 
hath agreed." Precisely of such a state, not a com- 
monwealth but a military despotism and a menace 
to mankind, annihilating that whereupon the world 
hath agreed, it is, that Shakespeare prophesied: 

Then everything includes itself in power, 
Power Into will, will into appetite, 
And appetite an universal wolf. 
So doubly seconded with will and power, 
Must make perforce an universal prey. 
And last eat up himself. 

From the ten thousand British men and women | 
who came to New England between 1620 and 1640,! 
some fifteen million Americans today are descended. 
From the forty thousand Britons who between 1607 
and 1670 settled In Virginia, and from their brothers! 
who colonized the South, some thirty million Amer- 
icans are descended. From the other Britons wha 
made America their home before and after 1776,, 



The Meaning for Us Today 223 

perhaps fifteen millions more. All in all, from fifty- 
five to sixty millions of our one hundred million are 
exclusively or predominantly British in blood. To 
these must be added the descendants of the Dutch, 
the Swedes, the Germans, who in the seventeenth 
century, and in the eighteenth before 1764, accept- 
ing British rule and law and speech, became one 
folk with the Britons in America and enriched the 
American spirit with strains of liberality and tolera- 
tion. Of these, thousands, like Herkimer and 
Muhlenberg in the War of Independence, stood 
side by side with Washington. 

Since then, and down to 1870, those, and other 
Europeans who have found a refuge here from the 
duresse of poverty, social or legal oppression, reli- 
gious, political, or military tyranny, have gloried in 
identifying themselves with the inheritors of Anglo- 
Saxon blood and speech, common law. Individual 
freedom and national responsibility. If it be true 
that, during the past generation, we have with too 
light scrutiny admitted to our large, freedom and 
easy fatness tens of thousands whose hands grasp 
our privileges, but whose hearts still cherish the 
^superstitions of the political inhumanity from which 
we thought they had escaped, who is to blame.? If 
jt be true that we have admitted tens of thousands 
^who, crazed with license, leap to the torch and bomb 
and in the name of liberty flaunt the rag of anarchy, 
who is to blame? If we have admitted one hundred 
\thousand ignorant of what America means, and if 



224 The Meaning for Us Today 

we acquiesce in that ignorance, who is to blame? 
Have we too faintly realized our obligation to in- 
struct them in the history, the principles, and the 
duty of our large freedom, the blame is ours. The 
time has come for searching of the heart, for open 
speech; for patient leading toward the light; for 
exercise of American discipline; for maintenance 
of American prerogative and dignity. The day of 
reckonmg is upon us: conscious of shortcomings 
and with humility we face It — but without fear. 
Not only the Anglo-Saxon majority of the American 
people but the whole people, in one historic and 
moral consciousness and one national ideal of de- 
mocracy finding Its soul, goes forth to try that soul, 
to purge it, to make it real for humanity. Our 
American heritage is of the revolutionary fathers, 
of the colonial fathers, of the English founders of 
colonial liberty — the contemporaries and friends of 
the poet and prophet of the race. A nation of such 
inheritance and such hope, can it for a moment 
tolerate influence or policy or aim subversive of the 
humanity cherished by the race for ages Immemorial? 
We of the blood, custom, law, — 

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
That Shakespeare spake. 



APPENDIX 

A. Significant Letters, Pamphlets, and Other Data, 
Relative to the Expedition of 1609. 

1 . "A Letter of M. Gabriel Archer, touching the Voyage 
of the Fleet of Ships, which arrived at Virginia, without 
Sir Tho. Gates, and Sir George Summers, 1609." Archer 
was recorder of the first colony in Virginia. The letter, 
apparently to the council at home, is of Aug. 31, 1609, and 
reached England late in October. It conveyed the first 
tidings of the tempest of June 24. It speaks of the "con- 
tentions, factions, and partakings" in the colony due to 
the non-arrival of Gates. Printed in 1625 in Purchas his 
Pilgrimes (Ed. 1906, XIX, 1-4). See also Brown, Genesis, 

1,327-332. 

2. Vessels begin to return from Virginia late in No- 
vember, 1609. Sir Thomas Gates and the Sea-Venture 
supposed lost. Genesis, I, 332-333. 

3. Letter of John Radclyffe "To the Right Ho^'' Earle 
of Salisburye, Lord high Treasurer of England." Dated 
from Jamestowne, this 4th of October, 1609. Gates and 
Summers not yet heard of. Captain John Smith reigning 
as sole governor; but "This man is sent home to answere 
some misdemeanors." George Percy, president; lack of 
victuals. Letter arrived late in November, 1609. Not 
published at the time. In State Papers (Colonial) James 
I, Vol. I, no. XIX, Genesis, I, 335-335, and Proceedings 
of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, October, 
1870, the Letter is given in full. 

225 



226 Appendix 

4. "A True and Sincere Declaration of the Purpose and 
Ends of the Plantation begun in Virginia." See p. 45, ante. 
By the authority of the Council. S. R. Dec. 14, 1609, 
Published immediately, as of 1610. The "terrible tem- 
pest"; Gates and his company still missing. 

5. "A Publication of the Counsell of Virginea, touching 
the Plantation there." Broadside, printed 1610. See 
p. 46, ante. Published about the same time as no. 4. 
Reprinted, Genesis, I, 354-356. 

6. A Sermon of W. Crashaw, preached in London before 
Lord De la Warr, Feb. 21, 1610, at his leave-taking for 
Virginia as Lord Governor. Published with approval of^ 
the council, March 19, 1610, under the title "A New- 
yeeres Gift to Virginea." For extracts see Genesis, I, 

360-375- 

7. De la Warr sails for Virginia, April i, 1610. Gates, 

etc., not yet heard of. Genesis, I, 388. 

8. Gates, Somers, and their shipwrecked company sail 
from Bermuda, May 10, and reach Jamestown, May 23, 
1610. Gates finds all things " full of misery and misgovern- 
ment," and assumes control, George Percy giving up his 
commission. See no. 11, below. 

9. De la Warr arrives, June 6, just as Gates is abandon- j 
ing the colony. De la Warr takes over the governorship! 
and, June 12, appoints of his council. Gates, Somers, 1] 
Percy, Wenman, Newport, William Strachey (secretary] 
and recorder). See no. ii, below. 

10. July 15, 1610, Gates and Newport sail for England] 
(see no. 11, below), bearing the following letters (nos. ii,i 
12, 13). Silvester Jourdan, who wrote no. 14, undoubtedlyj 
returned in the same vessel. 

11. William Strachey's Letter from Jamestown to an 
"Excellent Lady" in England, beginning with events of 



Appendix 227 

June 2, 1609, ending July 15, 1610, and sent that day with 
Gates to England, Not published till 1625, and then as 
"A True Reportory," etc. See pp. 49-53, ante. 

12. A letter from Lord De la Warr to the Earl of Salis- 
bury. "Sir Thomas Gates, the bearer thereof." Events 
of De la Warr's voyage and his arrival in Virginia. "James 
Towne ... a verie noysome and unholsome place oc- 
casioned much bie the mortalitie and Idlenes of our owne 
people." Gates is "best able to Informe." The letter 
is indorsed by Salisbury's secretary — "Received in Sep- 
tember, 1610." Printed for first time. State Papers 
(Colonial) James I, vol. I, no. xxii; also in Genesis, 1, 413- 

415- 

13. From the Lord De la Warr to the Patentees in 
England. This despatch, known also as "Letter of the 
Governor and Council of Virginia to the Virginia Company 
of London," is dated July 7, 1610. It is drawn up by 
Strachey as secretary and includes portions of no. 11, 
above. Sent with Gates. Not published till 1849 (Hak- 
luyt Society). Also in Genesis, I, 402-413. See pp. 51- 
52, ante. 

14. Silvester Jourdan's "A Discovery of the Bar- 
mudas." Author's dedication to Master John Fitz James, 
Esquire, is dated October 13, 1610. Printed by John 
Windet, London, 1610. Reprinted in 1613 in "A plaine 
Description of the Barmudas." See no. 10, above, and 
pp. 45, 48, ante; also Genesis, I, 419; II, 620-621. 

15. "A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony 
of Virginia, etc." S. R. Nov. 8, 1610. Published by order 
of the council, London: 1610. Based upon Strachey's 
Letter (no. ii, above) and Gates' Report upon Oath to 
the Council. See pp. 46, 48-53, ante. 

16. "Newes from Virginia." A ballad of the voyage. 



228 Appendix 

the shipwreck, the Bermudas, the arrival in Virginia and 
the return of Gates to England. By R. Rich, Gent, one 
of the voyage. Published, London: 1610, sold by John 
Wright. See Genesis, I, 420-426, for copy. Also, prob- 
ably by the same versifier, since he promises "the same 
worke more at large," "A ballad called the last News from 
Virginia," entered at Stationers' Hall by the same book- 
seller, Aug. 16, 161 1. I know of no copy extant. 

17. A letter of De la Warr to Salisbury, after his return 
to England in 161 1. Dated June 22. Printed in State 
Papers (Domestic), and in Genesis, I, 476-477. Also "A 
short Relation made by the Right Honourable the Lord 
De la Warr" to the Council, June 25, 161 1, "touching his 
unexpected returne home." Published by authority of the 
Council (S. R. July 6), 161 1. Purchas, XIX, 85-90; 
Genesis, I, 477-483. 

As stated in the body of this volume, the only manu- 
scripts and pamphlets in the foregoing list that could have 
been of service to Shakespeare in the composition of The 
Tempest are 4, 11, 14, and 15. Later manuscripts up to 
February, 1613, such as the letters of Dale to the Council, 
May 25, 161 1, and to Salisbury, Aug. 17, 161 1 (the latter 
with all Strachey's earmarks), Spelman's "Relation" of 
events from 1609 to 161 1, Strachey's "Historic of Travaile 
into Virginia" of 161 2, Whitaker's "Good News from 
Virginia" of 1612 (published about March, 1613) contain 
nothing to our purpose. Nor do works printed between 
161 1 and February, 1613: for instance, "For the Colony 
in Virginea Britannia, Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall," 
i6i2;"TheNewLifeof Virginea," 1612; and the two "Ox- 
ford Tracts" justifying Captain John Smith's career in 
the colony, published at Oxford in 1612. Of these, one is 
"A Map of Virginia with a description of the Country, 



Appendix 229 

etc. . . . written by Captaine Smith"; the other, "The 
Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia since their 
first beginning . . . 1606 till this present 161 2, etc.," 
from the writings of observers in Virginia. "By W. S." 
W. S. is not, as averred by Malone (Shakespeare, XV, 390) 
and by Major (Introduction to Strachey's Travaile into 
Virginia, p. viii), "W. Strachey." Others following the 
false clue, as for instance Furness, The Tempest (Vario- 
rum, IX, 313) are tempted to identify "The Proceedings" 
by " W. S," printed 1612, with Strachey's True Reportory; 
and hence the misleading tradition that the True Repor- 
tory was published in 161 2. The "W. S." above was the 
Rev. Dr. William Symonds who delivered the sermon 
"Virginea Britannia" before the company of adventurers 
and planters, at Whitechapel, April 25, 1609. He was a 
constant advocate of John Smith. See Eggleston, The 
Beginners of a Nation, p. 66, and Brown, Genesis, II, 597- 
601. 

B. The True Declaration; the Despatch; the True 
Reportory. 

If the reader will turn to the selections from the latter 
part of the True Declaration given by Purchas at the end 
of Strachey's "Letter," or True Reportory, XIX, 67-72, 
he will notice that the passage from the Declaration, 68, 
*' rather than they would go a stone's cast to fetch wood" 
agrees with Strachey's De la Warr "Despatch" (Hakluyt 
Society, Hist. Travaile into Virginia, 1849, p. xxvi) and 
that the passage, from the Declaration, 67, about "the 
ground of all those miseries" and "every man would be a 
Commander" is paralleled in the "Despatch," xxxil- 
xxxiv, but not verbally. On the other hand the former 
passage (Declaration, 68) is drawn verbally from Strach- 



230 Appendix 

ey's True Repertory, 45; and the Declaration passage, 
from "the ground of all those miseries" to "the fruites of 
too deare-bought repentance," is based upon the Reper- 
tory, 46-48, 60. The passage in the Declaration, 68-70, 
about the treasons, the covetousness in the mariners, the 
trucking for corn with the Indians, down to "would not 
now obtaine so much as a pottle" is drawn, in spots verb- 
ally, from the True Repertory, 50-51. The information 
about the "Sturgion" is based upon Repertory, 52. In 
the True Declaration, a little further on, the "brackish 
water of James fort" is mentioned. This is based upon 
Repertory, 58. The accompanying comparison between 
"the fennes and marshes" of Jamestown and the Wilds 
of Kent is drawn almost verbatim from Repertory, 58-59. 
Numerous ether sentences and phrases of the Declaration 
come from the Repertory. 

The first part of the True Declaration is most readily 
accessible in Malone, Variorum Shakespeare, XV, or in 
Furness, Variorum, IX. If the reader will compare that 
with the corresponding sections of the Repertory dealing 
with the storm and the description of the Bermudas, he 
will find seme fifteen precise coincidences of detail or of 
speech not duplicated in Jourdan's Discovery. From the 
Discovery, this part of the Declaration draws, however, 
or appears to draw, five phrases that have no exact parallel 
in the Repertory. These are "Summers descryed land"; 
"the ship fell betwixt two rockes, that caused her to stand 
firme"; "an inchaunted pile of rockes"; "unspoyled vic- 
tuals and tackling"; "to sustaine nature." The Re- 
pertory and the Discovery- as I have said in the text, 
agree in the report of some salient facts, but they have no 
community of literary style. The Despatch has nothing 
about the storm. 



Appendix 23 1 

C. The Excellent Lady. 

The Lady to whom Strachey's letter is addressed was 
vitally concerned in the prosperity of the plantation. Her 
husband is nowhere mentioned; but among the patentees 
of 1609 there were no women in their own right, and the 
informations imparted to this woman are more than once 
of a kind that could be imparted only to one in close touch 
with the Virginia Council. She was evidently the wife of 
one of the more important patentees of 1609; not, however, 
of one of the eight earls who head the list, for she is nowhere 
styled "most noble." She is entitled "your Ladiship," 
"Noble" and, twice, "right Noble Ladie"— of which the 
last, if it is not merely an epithet, would, according to 
Elizabethan and Jacobean custom, indicate rank below 
that of Countess. Of the thirteen succeeding peers in the 
list of 1609 ten are members of the council. Of the ten, 
or for that matter all thirteen, the most likely to satisfy 
the stipulations is Theophilus (since 1603, Baron) Howard 
of Walden, eldest son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. 
Both father and son were substantial investors in the 
Company and members of the Council in 1609. The wife 
of Lord Howard of Walden was Elizabeth, daughter of 
George Hume, Earl of Dunbar. Their country seat was 
near the village of Saffron Walden in Essex, which, ac- 
cording to the best authority, appears to have been the 
home of Strachey himself. The easy, conversational, and 
sometimes personal tone of Strachey's letter indicates 
familiar acquaintance with his correspondent. On only 
one occasion does he specify the previous habitat of any 
person connected with the voyage or with Virginia, and 
that is when he tells her ladyship, as a matter of interest to 
both of them, that one of the Bermuda mutineers, John 
Want, was "an Essex man of Newport by Saffronwalden." 



232 Appendix 

It may be worth recalling that Hakluyt, who obtained 
possession of the letter to the Excellent Lady, was long 
associated with the Howards, as a protege of the house. In 
1598 he had dedicated the second edition of his Navigations 
to one of the kin, Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham; 
and he was, from 1605 on, rector of Wetheringset in Suffolk, 
not far from Saffron Walden. 

D. Bacon and the Liberal Movement. 

Bacon became member of the Council for the Virginia 
Company in 1609. The charters of that year and of 161 2, 
drafted by Sandys, were prepared for the king's signature 
by Sir Henry Hobart and Sir Francis Bacon. To Bacon's 
interest in the colony testimony is borne by William 
Strachey in the Dedication (1618) of a manuscript copy 
of his Historic of Travaile into Virginia Britannia: * 
" Your Lordship ever approving yourself a most noble fau- 
tor [favorer] of the Virginia Plantation, being from the 
beginning (with other lords and earles) of the principal 
counsell applyed to propagate and guide yt." In his 
speech of January 30, 1621, in the House of Commons on 
the benefits of the king's government occurs the famous 
passage, "This kingdom now first in his Majesty's Times 
hath gotten a lot or portion in the New World by the 
plantation of Virginia and the Summer Islands. And 
certainly it is with the kingdoms on earth as it is in the 
kingdom of heaven; sometimes a grain of mustard-seed 
proves a great tree." A figure already used in the conclu- 
sion of the Declaration of the Virginia Council of 1609. 
In Bacon's essay Of Plantations, completed probably 

1 Sloane MS., No. 1622. An earlier copy dedicated to Sir 
Allen Apsley, between 1612 and 1616, in Ashmolean MS., 
No. 1754. 



Appendix 233 

after 1622, and not published till after his death, there ap- 
pears to be unanimity of practical policy with that of the 
Sandys party in the council: the shamefulness of plant- 
ing with "the scum of the people"; the need of centralized 
but not arbitrary government; the sinfulness of forsaking 
*'a plantation once in forwardness." When it suited his 
political purpose or when some shadow of liberal conces- 
sion was harmless, Bacon may have collaborated with 
Sandys; but his interest in the colony was romantic and 
always for the glorification of the Crown. "He had no 
insight into the strength and value of the newer currents 
that were bearing his countrymen in the direction of a 
wider and more assured liberty." In some of his Essays 
he professes to regard the state as an organic unity of 
king and parliament. But in others he is an outspoken 
absolutist: the state is sovereign in both religion and 
politics; those who would subvert the government or de- 
pose a king "must be damned and sent to hell forever." 
Of self-government or of education toward it he has not 
the faintest glimmer. In his communications intended for 
the sovereign he is not only absolutist but fulsome to 
nauseation: Elizabeth has power to enlarge or restrain; 
James is appointed and gifted of God, his prerogative is 
unlimited. Bacon was incapable of projecting democratic 
government at home, still more in a colony beyond the 
seas.^ It is inconceivable that friendship or unofficial 
intercourse of any kind should have existed between 
Bacon and any of the patriots of the council, such as South- 
ampton, who had followed the Earl of Essex to his death; 
or between him and any friend of Southampton, like 
Shakespeare. For it was Bacon who, with an ingratitude 

1 See Gooch, Political Thought from Bacon to Halifax, 
22-34. 



234 Appendix 

rarely paralleled, a perfidy to all the instincts of friendship, 
and a superfluous malignity — in an advocate doubly 
unjustifiable, had in i6oi "exerted his professional talents 
to blacken the memory" of his own and Southampton's 
friend, the Earl of Essex. And by this perfidy he had en- 
sured the conviction of Southampton himself. Though a 
giant among scientific philosophers, Bacon was in political 
vision reactionary, and in practice both self-seeking and 
blind. He had nothing of Hooker's liberalism or Shake- 
speare's humanity. "He pushed James I towards a col- 
lision that could only end in disaster." 

E. Indebtedness to Homer, Boethius, Chaucer. 

For the heroic strand of his Troilus and Cressida Shake- 
speare had recourse to Caxton's account of the siege of 
Troy, and to Homer. The speech of Ulysses is suggested 
by the second book of the Iliad. Precisely which of the 
accessible translations, Latin, French or English, Shake- 
peare was using here — for it is unlikely that he went to the 
Greek — or what narrative or dramatic manipulation of the 
stor)'', we do not know. Chapman, whose translation of 
Books I, 2, 7-1 1 had been published in 1598, could not 
have furnished Shakespeare with the knowledge displayed 
in the drama of other books of the Iliad than these seven.^ 
But in Chapman's second book we find what may have 
been the verbal origin of Shakespeare's "The specialty 
of rule hath been neglected"; and "the unworthiest 
shows as fairly in the mask." Chapman's Ulysses 
chiding a noisy, discontented Greek, says (Iliad, II, 169- 
172) — 

1 See J. S. P. Tatlock, The Siege of Troy in Elizabethan Litera- 
ture, etc. Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass'n of America, XXX, 4, 739 
ei seq. 



Appendix 23 5 

Stay, wretch, be still, 
And hear thy betters; thou art base, and both in power 

and skill 
Poor and unworthy, without name in council or in war. 
We must not all be kings. The rule is most irregular^ 
Where many rule. One lord, one king, propose to thee; 

and he, 
To whom wise Saturn's son hath given both law and em- 

pery 
To rule the public, is that king. 

And from Chapman's translation, a hundred lines before, 
of the figure of the bees flocking to their leaders, Shake- 
speare may have derived something: 

As when of frequent bees 
Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees 
Of their egression endlessly, with ever rising new. . . 
They still crowd out so; this flock here, that there, be- 
labouring 
The loaded flowers; so from their ships and tents the 

army's store 
Trooped to these princes and the court. — 

From this Shakespeare may have derived something of 
both language and figure in the continuation of his Ulys- 
ses' speech. For instance, the "Grecian tents hollow upon 
this plain"; the general "like the hive to whom the for- 
agers repair^'; even the suggestion of his argument con- 
cerning "degree," — though Ulysses uses the word with 
a broader significance than Chapman, who himself is 
elaborating Homer's simple "tribes of thronging bees 
issuing always anew." 

Whether through Chapman or not, the first six lines 



236 Appendix 

of Shakespeare's exposition of the specialty of rule (Troilus 
and Cressida, I, iii, 78-83), including the simile of the 
bees, derive not from Plato or the Platonic tradition, as 
some have thought, but from the Iliad. 

If Shakespeare was using Chapman's translation of the 
Iliad he must have read, a few lines after the passage 
about "irregular rule," the words (II. II, 216-219) with 
which Ulysses in the council of the princes prefaces his 
cudgeling of Thersites; 

Not a worse of all this host came with our king than thee 
To Troy's great siege; then do not take into that mouth 

of thine 
The names of kings, much less revile the dignities that shine 
In their supreme states. 

Is it too much to imagine that the words italicized above 
recalled to Shakespeare's mind the ancient analogy — famil- 
iarized by mediaeval and renaissance philosophy — of the 
celestial dignities performing their motions in wonted order 
and degree and held in harmony by the bond of love? 

For the love-strand of his play the dramatist Is using 
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: he has had it by his side 
while writing the two preceding scenes of this first act. 
He is about to write of the universe held together by the 
specialty of rule and of the wreck that ensues when rule 
is disregarded. He turns first to Troilus's panegyric of 
love (Bk. Ill, stanzas 250-252), and reads — 

Love, that of erthe and see hath governaunce, 
Love, that his hestes hath in hevene hye, 
Love, that with an holsom alliaunce 
Halt peples joyned, as him lest them gye . . . 



Appendix 237 

That that the world with feyth, which that Is stable, 

Dyverseth so his stoundes concordynge, 

That elements that been so discordable 

Holden a bond perpetuely duringe, 

That Phebus mote his rosy day forth bringe, 

And that the mone hath lordship over the nightes, 

Al this doth Love; ay heried be his mightes! 

That that the see^ that gredy is to flowen, 

Constreyneth to a certeyn ende so 

His fiodes, that so fersly they ne grozven 

To drenchen erthe and al for ever-mo; 

And if that Love ought lete his brydel go, 

Al that now loveth a-sonder sholde lepe. 

And lost were al, that Love halt now to-hepe. 

From this passage Shakespeare turns probably to the orig- 
inal which Chaucer is here versifying, Chaucer's own 
translation of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophie — 
it is in the folio before him, Thynne's of 1532 or Speght's 
of 1598, — and he finds (Bk. II, Metre VIII) one or two 
other thoughts and expressions that catch his fancy: 
"so that it is nat leveful [for the see] to strecche hise brode 
termes or boundes up-on the erthes, that is to seyn, to 
covere al the erthe; al this acordaunce of thinges is boun- 
den with Love, that . . . hath also commaundements to the 
hevenes. And yif this Love slakede the brydeles, alle 
thinges that now loven hem to-gederes wolden maken a 
bataile continuely. . . . This Love halt to-gideres poeples 
joigned with an holy bond, and knitteth sacrement of mari- 
ages of chaste loves." Or again, in the Boethius (Bk. IV, 
metre VI), he may note "If thou wilt demen . . . the 
rightes or the lawes of the heye thonderer, that is to seyn, 



23 8 Appendix 

of god . . . bihold the heightes of the soverein hevene. 
There kepen the sterres by rightful alliaunce of thinges, 
hir olde pees . . . And thus maketh Love entrechaunge- 
able the perdurable courses; and thus is discordable 
bataile y-put out of the contree of the sterres"; or the 
phraseology "Amonges ihise thinges sitteih the heye maker ^ 
king and lord, welle and beginninge, lawe and wys juge, to 
don equitee.'' 

Though the controlling power in both these passages is 
love, that love is, as with Shakespeare's Ulysses, law. And 
if it were not ineffably prosaic to attribute Shakespeare's 
thoughts, phrases, figures, precisely to one or another of 
many springs of contemporary information and parlance, 
in these two passages combined one might say we find the 
d efinite source of some : Sol, enthroned " amids the other " ; 
"like the commandment of a king"; "the unity and mar- 
ried calm of states"; "each thing meets in mere oppug- 
nancy"; "the bounded waters" rising "higher than the 
shores" to "make a sop of all this solid globe"; the dis- 
ruption of natural loves — "the rude son should strike 
his father dead"; "between whose endless jar justice re- 
sides." 

F. Batman and Rabelais. 

In Batman's Additions to Bartholeme (1582) the poet 
might have found — if finding of commonplaces were nec- 
essary — Sol as a planet, "the fourth in place, as it were a 
king in the middest of his throne," and "the Sunne is the 
Eye of the world." See New Shakesp. Soc. Trans., 1877- 
79, 436-443. And in the French of Rabelais' Gargantua 
and Pantagruel or one of the Elizabethan translations of it, 
he might have read, perhaps had read, Panurge's famous 
panegyric of debtors and borrowers — a correlation backed 



Appendix 239 

by the analogy of planetary interborrowing without which 
"amongst the planets will be no regular course, all will be 
disorder." See Urquhart and Motteux, Works of Rabelais, 
Bk. Ill, iii, 334-335. But neither Batman nor Rabelais 
furnished Shakespeare with his materials or his line of 
thought in this portion of the discourse of Ulysses. 

G. Sir Thomas Elyot's The Governoixr. 

In Book I, Chapters one and two, Elyot inveighs against 
the disorders of a "communaltie," insists upon monarchi- 
cal government, and elaborates the doctrine of rule by 
magistrates in their degrees as appointed by the prince. 
He exemplifies his contention somewhat in the fashion of 
Ulysses: If the commons "ones throwe downe theyr gover- 
nour, they ordre every thynge without justice, only with 
vengeance and crueltie . . . Wherefore undoubtedly the 
best and most sure governaunce is by one kynge or prince. 
. . . Who can denle but that all thynge in heven and 
erthe is governed by one god, by one perpetuall ordre, by 
one providence? One Sunne ruleth over the day, and one 
Moone over the nyghte; and to descende downe to the 
erthe, in a littel beest, whiche of all other is moste to be 
marvayled at, I meane the Bee, Is lefte to man by nature, 
as It semeth, a perpetuall figure of a juste governaunce or 
rule." From "the discrepance of degrees," he says, "pro- 
cedeth ordre: whiche In thinges as wel naturall as super- 
natural! hath ever had such a preeminence, that therby 
the incomparable majestic of god, as it were by a bright 
leme of a torche or candel, Is declared to the blynde in- 
habltantes of this worlde. More over take away ordre from 
all thynges what shulde than remayne? Certes nothynge 
finally, except some man wolde imagine eftsones chaos; 
whiche of some is expounde a confuse mixture. Also where 



240 Appendix 

there is any lacke of ordre nedes must be perpetuall con- 
flicte." When any agent subject to Nature destroys 
order "A^ hymselfe of necessiie muste than perisshe, whereof 
ensuethe universall dissolution.^^ And, speaking of order in 
the vegetable and animal creation: "without ordre may be 
nothing stable or permanent; and it may not be called 
ordre, except it do contayne in it degrees, high and base, 
accordynge to the merite or estimation of the thynge 
that is ordered." See Everyman edition, in sequence as 
quoted, pages 8-9, 3, 4. 

The resemblance in thought, illustration, and occasion- 
ally in phraseology, in the passages italicized to the dis- 
course of Ulysses needs no comment. It does not, however, 
follow that Shakespeare was deliberately versifying these 
half-dozen pages of Elyot. That he may have read the 
chapters, steeped his mind in them, is not impossible. 
We note, however, that the figure of the celestial order is 
but touched upon by Elyot, and the "chaos" but slightly 
developed. The indebtedness to Elyot, if any, would begin 
and end with the political application of the analogy. 

H. Hooker's Indebtedness to Boethius and Amobius. 

"The ordinance which moveth the heaven and the 
stars, etc.," is Chaucer's translation of Boethius, De Con- 
solatione, Bk. IV, Metre VI. In the Ecclesiastical Polity, 
Bk. I, ii, 6, Hooker quotes Boethius, Bk. IV, Prose V, 50, 
Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte 
fieri cuncta ne dubites, and translates "Let no man doubt 
but that everything is well done, because the world is 
ruled by so good a guide." Chaucer's translation of this 
runs — "For as moche as god, the good governour, atem- 
preth and governeth the world, ne doute thee nat that alle 
thinges ben doon a-right." 



Appendix 241 

The reader will find the Latin passage from Arnobius 
Adversus Gentes in all editions of Hooker's Polity: in the 
Everyman edition at the bottom of page 157. From it 
Hooker draws his phraseology: "those principal and 
mother elements . . . whereof all things are made should 
lose the qualities which now they have"; "the heavenly 
arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve 
itself"; "by irregular volubility"; "prince of the lights 
of heaven." From Arnobius he paraphrases his "moon 
should wander from her beaten way," his "seasons blend 
themselves by disordered and confused mixture," his 
"celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions," 
his "winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield 
no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the 
fruits of the earth pine away." 

I. Translations and Expositions of Plato and Aris- 
totle Accessible in 1600. 

In Plato's Republic, Book IV, 431-2, the comparison 
of diapason is used. In Book VIII, 562, 574-5, and IX, 
574, of the Republic we find something like a suggestion 
of "strength should be lord of imbecility, and the rude son 
should strike his father dead"; in VIII, 561, and II, 359, 
of the three lines beginning "Force should be right"; 
in VIII, 561 and 564 of lines 1 19-126 — even of the "uni- 
versal wolf" and of the following passage about "neglec- 
tion of degree." ^ The Republic was accessible in Latin 
for eighty-two years before 1600, and in 1600 in the French 
version of Loys Leroy. Plato's opinion of democracy 
had, however, for a long time previous been familiar to 
Englishmen through the fragments of Cicero's De Repub- 

1 J. H. Hanford, A Platonic Passage in Troilus and Cressida; 
Univ. North Carolina, Studies in Philology, XIII, 2. 



242 Appendix 

lica quoted by St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei, 
and to a slight extent through Boethius. Through the 
Aristotelian tradition and the neo-Platonism of the Renais- 
sance, the Latin and French translations of Aristotle's 
Politics, and J. D.'s English translation of Leroy's French 
in 1598, the dangers of democracy had become a political 
platitude. The expositions of Aristotle and Plato which 
J. D. had appended to his translation would have familiar- 
ized those who read nothing but English with the opinions 
in general of both philosophers. The psychology developed 
in Plato's Republic had lived through his Timseus during 
the thousand years in which the Republic seemed to sleep; 
and, in Aristotelian guise, it had dominated the schools 
during the middle ages. Of the Nicomachean Ethics of 
Aristotle there existed numerous translations in Shake- 
speare's day, an English paraphrase by Wylkinson, of 
1547, and a French translation by de Plessis, of 1553. 
For reasons given in the text I do not believe that Shake- 
speare was deriving the politics, psychology or ethics of 
Ulysses' speech directly from either Plato or Aristotle. 

J. The Ethics and Psychology of Hooker and 
Shakespeare. 

I. Shakespeare's dicta concerning the nature and appre- 
hension of right and wrong, absolute and relative values, 
and the whole question of choice, closely resemble at times 
the utterances of Montaigne, but the substantial philoso- 
phy, that which inspires his rule of conduct, is more ex- 
plicitly and logically expounded by Hooker. The reflec- 
tions of the Friar in Romeo and Juliet, II, iii, 17 {c. 1594-6) 
on the special good that may proceed from vileness, and 
vice versa; Henry V's "There is some soul of goodness in 
things evil, would men observingly distil it out," IV, I, 4 



;i 



Appendix 243 

(1599)— both written before Florio's translation of Mon- 
taigne was published; Hamlet's "There is nothing either 
good or bad, but thinking makes it so," II, ii, 256 (1602-4) ; 
the query of Troilus (1602-9), "What is aught but as 
'tis valued?" Hector's reply (II, ii, 53-57) : 

But value dwells not in particular will; 

It holds his estimate and dignity 

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself 

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry 

To make the service greater than the god; 

and Troilus's retort (61-67): 

I take to-day a wife, and my election 

Is led on in the conduct of my will, 

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears. 

Two traded pilots twixt the dangerous shores 

Of will and judgment: how may I avoid. 

Although my will distaste what is elected, 

The wife I chose; — 

all these find their counterpart, if counterpart must be 
found for reflections which might be common to the 
thought of the age, in the four or five sections of Hooker's 
Polity (I, vii-xi), some thirty pages in all. For instance, 
"To choose is to will one thing before another. And 
to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that 
which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye 
of the understanding"; and in what follows — "there is no 
particular object so good but it may have the show of un- 
pleasant quality," wherefore "the will may shrink and 
decline it; there is no particular evil which hath not some 



244 Appendix 

appearance of goodness whereby to insinuate itself. For 
evil as evil cannot be desired: if that be desired which is 
evil, the cause is the goodness which is or seemeth to be 
joined with it. Goodness doth not move by being, but by 
being apparent; and therefore many things are neglected 
which are most precious, only because the value of them 
lieth hid . . . All particular things which are subject 
unto action the Will doth so far forth incline unto, as 
Reason judgeth them the better for us. . . . If Reason 
err we fall into evil. . . . The greatest part of men are 
such as prefer their private good before all things, even 
that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most 
divine. . . . Unless the last good of all, which is desired 
altogether for itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making 
it our end. . . . Whereas we now love the thing that is 
good especially in respect of benefit unto us; we shall then 
love the thing that is good, only or principally for the 
goodness of beauty in itself." ^ 

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn," says one in 
All's Well that Ends Well (as we have it, probably of 1602), 
"good and ill together; our virtues would be proud if our 
faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair 
if they were not cherished by our virtues." "Of such per- 
fection capable we are not in this life," says Hooker. 
"While we are in the world, subject we are unto sundry 
imperfections, griefs of body, defects of mind; yea, the 
best things we do are painful, and the exercise of them 
grievous;" but again — "We are not to marvel at the choice 
of evil then when the contrary is probably known. . . . 
For there was never sin committed, wherein a less good 
was not preferred before a greater, and that wilfully." ^ 

1 Polity, 169-170, 172, 174, 192, 202, 205. 

2 Polity, 203, 173. 



Appendix 245 

2. The Law of Nature and of Political Society. "Na- 
ture craves," says Hector (Troilus and Cressida, II, ii, 
173-182), 

Nature craves 
All dues be render'd to their owners: now, 
What nearer debt in all humanity 
Than wife is to the husband? If this law 
Of nature be corrupted through affection, 
And that great minds, of partial indulgence 
To their benumbed wills, resist the same, 
There is a law in each well-order'd nation 
To curb those raging appetites that are 
Most disobedient and refractory. 



The thought is not rare. It occurs also in Hooker (I, x, 
i) — "We see then how nature itself teacheth laws and 
statutes to live by. . . . Laws politic, ordained for ex- 
ternal order and regiment among men, are never framed 
as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be 
inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedi- 
ence unto the sacred laws of his nature, . . . they do ac- 
cordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward 
actions, that they be no hinderance unto the common 
good for which societies are instituted; unless they do 
this, they are not perfect. . . . Laws do not only teach 
what is good, but they enjoin it, they have in them a cer- 
tain constraining force." ^ 

3. The principle that nought is ours save as we use it 
comes to the fore in Ulysses' colloquy with Achilles 
(Troilus and Cressida, HI, iii, 95 et seq.): 

^ Polity, 187-8, 192. 



246 Appendix 

A strange fellow here 
Writes me that " Man — how dearly ever parted, 
How much in having, or without or in — 
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath. 
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; 
As when his virtues shining upon others 
Heat them, and they retort that heat again 
To the first giver." 

Achilles finds no strangeness here at all and cites the anal- 
ogy of the soul and the eye that cannot "behold itself, 
not going from itself" — a commonplace from the pseudo- 
Platonic First Alcibiades (Latin transl. 1560), by way, 
perhaps, of Cicero's Tusculans (English transl. 1561) 
or Davies Nosce Teipsum (1599), or of general conver- 
sation. Ulysses, returning to his "strange fellow," replies, 

I do not strain at the position, — 

It is familiar, — but at the author's drift; 

Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves 

That no man is the lord of anything, 

(Though in and of him there be much consisting,) 

Till he communicate his parts to others. 

The thought is expressed by other Shakespearian char- 
acters. Vincentio has even more poetically phrased it in 
Measure for Measure of 1603-4 (I> i> 3° ^^ ^^9-) • "Thyself 
and thy belongings are not thine own; . . . Heaven doth 
with us as we with torches do; . . . Spirits are not finely 
touched but to fine issues; . . . Nature . . . determines 
. . o both thanks and use"; and his Laertes (Hamlet, 
IV, v, 160-162) is yet to rephrase it. That Hooker, also, 
insists upon the principle is not strange; nor, if Shakespeare 



Appendix 247 

had to borrow this thought from the divine, would he be 
Hkely to write him down "a strange fellow." "To supply 
those defects and imperfections," writes Hooker (Eccl. 
Pol. I, X, I, and 12), "which are in us living single and 
solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek com- 
munion and fellowship with others. . . . Between men 
and beasts there is no possibility of sociable communion, 
because the well-spring of that communion is a natural 
delight which man hath to transfuse from himself into 
others, and to receive from others into himself especially 
those things wherein the excellenc)^ of his kind doth most 
consist. . . . Civil society doth more content the nature 
of man than any private kind of solitary living, because 
in society this good of mutual participation is so much 
larger than otherwise." And, in XI, i, "All things (God 
only excepted), besides the nature which they have in 
themselves, receive externally some perfection from other 
things, as hath been shewed. Insomuch as there is in the 
whole world no one thing great or small, but either in 
respect of knowledge or of use it may add unto our per- 
fection somewhat."^ 

I cite these passages merely as further example of simi- 
larity in subject and point of view. Not only is the "posi- 
tion familiar" as Ulysses says, and frequently taken in 
the plays of Shakespeare and in his sonnets, it abounds 
also in plays, essays and sonnets of others, Italian, French, 
English. If Shakespeare derived the "position" from any 
definite source, it might have been the pseudo-Platonic, 
as mentioned above, or the Nosce Teipsum, or the discus- 
sion of Friendship in the Ethics of Aristotle, or, as J. M. 
Robertson has shown,^ one of several passages, in Cicero, 

1 Polity, 188, 198, 201. 

* Montaigne and Shakespeare, pp. loi et seq. 



248 Appendix 

Seneca, Erasmus, Montaigne, or Marston. Or it may have 
been from Hooker. For the strange fellow, however, and 
his "drift" — the circumstantial detail, which Ulysses 
counts less familiar — I venture to suggest, though I sup- 
pose others have done the same, Rabelais, who was well 
known to the Elizabethans, and his Panurge's panegyric 
upon Borrowing. See the Works of Rabelais, III, iii, v, 
pages 333-343, in Motteux's translation. Rabelais was a 
stranger fellow than Socrates, Aristotle, Montaigne or 
Hooker. And the drift of Panurge's "circumstance" is 
stranger still. 

4. Discourse of Reason; Will and Appetite. We cannot 
be sure that Shakespeare used the expression "discourse 
of reason" before 1604. It occurs in Troilus and Cressida, 
published first in 1609 with additions, and it may have 
been in the original manuscript of about 1 601-2. It occurs 
in the 1604 quarto of Hamlet (written about 1601-2), 
but not in the incomplete version published in 1603. It 
appears as "discourse of thought" in Othello, written and 
acted about 1604, but not published till 1622. The expres- 
sion has been discovered in a few English books published 
before 1580; but there is no proof that any of them were 
read by Shakespeare. Bacon uses the phrase in 1599 
(putative pamphlet on Squire's conspiracy), and in The 
Advancement of Learning, 1605.^ J. M. Roberston finds 
the expression four times in Montaigne's Essays and in 
Florio's translation of them, published in 1603. He con- 
cedes that the words "seem to be scholastic in origin" 
but he finds it difficult to "doubt that ... it came to 
Shakespeare through Florio's Montaigne." The phrase 
is scholastic, but it was probably in common use in Eliza- 

* J. M. Robertson, Montaigne and Shakespeare, p. 47. See 
also, Furness, Variorum, Hamlet, I, p. 45; and N. E. D. 



Appendix 249 

bethan conversation. I find "discourse," "discourse of 
reason," "discourse of natural reason," "natural discourse 
of reason," "natural reason," "natural discourse" scat- 
tered up and down the pages of Hooker's Polity, 1594. 
In the first book Hooker uses the phrase in several of its 
variations. He discusses the faculty of reason, and re- 
gards "discourse" as the art or process of ratiocination. 
"The Law of Reason or Human Nature," he says (I, x, 8) 
"is that which men by discourse of natural reason have 
rightly found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto 
in their actions." In the third book, speaking of the dis- 
paragement of reason by the Puritans, he says (viii, 11) 
"Let men be taught this [the belief in God's existence, etc.] 
either by revelation from heaven, or by instruction upon 
earth. ... If the knowledge thereof were possible 
without discourse of natural reason, why should none be 
found capable thereof but only men?" And on the same 
page, "What science can be attained unto without the 
help of natural discourse and reason?" A few paragraphs 
earlier (VIII, 7) Hooker contrasts genuine philosophy as 
"true and sound knowledge attained by natural discourse 
of reason" with "that philosophy which to bolster heresy 
or error casteth a fraudulent show of reason upon things 
which are indeed unreasonable." And, in the last para- 
graph of the same section, "human laws" are defined to 
be "ordinances, which such as have lawful authority 
given them for that purpose do probably draw from the 
law of nature and God, by discourse of reason aided with 
the influence of divine grace." ^ 

To attribute Shakespeare's use of the expression to the 
exclusive authority of Hooker would be as unwarrantable 
as to attribute it to a reading of Bacon's pamphlet on 
1 Polity, 182,319,312,324. 



250 Appendix 

Squire's conspiracy, or of his Advancement of Learning* 
in manuscript, say, of 1603, or of Florio's Montaigne 
whether in the print of 1603 or in manuscript before pub- 
lication, or of any other English books, in which we know 
it was used before 1601. It is worth noticing, however, 
that, outside of the Polity, in none of these books, even 
by Bacon or Montaigne, is the phrase used other than 
calamo currente save once, when Montaigne^ in the Essay 
on Spurina vouchsafes, "It is much, by discourse of reason, 
to bridle our appetites." As to the word "discourse" 
in the sense of drawing inferences, it appears frequently 
in Montaigne, but that fact combined with Montaigne's 
four incidental mentions of "discourse of reason" does not 
justify Mr. Robertson in concluding that Shakespeare 
derives word or phrase from Montaigne. Nor does it 
follow that Hamlet's soliloquy "What is a man, etc.," 
is an "echo" of Montaigne, Bk. II, 8 — "Since it hath 
pleased God to endow us with some capacity of discourse, 
that as beasts we should not servilely be subjected to 
common laws, but rather with judgment and voluntary 
liberty apply ourselves unto them; . . . only reason ought 
to have the conduct of our inclinations"; and of Bk. II, 
18, "Nature hath endowed us with a large faculty to en- 
tertain ourselves apart, etc." In Hooker, "discourse'* 
or discourse of reason" — the argumentative process by 
which we determine the value of "things unsensible" — 
is clearly discriminated, on the one hand, from judgment 
common to us with the beasts, concerning matters of 
appetite, and on the other, from processes of supernatural 
revelation. By Hooker it is much more largely and ex- 
plicitly discussed than by Montaigne or any other con- 

1 Bk. I, p. 28, 1. 13, W. A. Wright's edition, 1885. 

2 Bk. II, XXXIII, p. 296, Temp. Class Ed. 



Appendix 251 

temporary writer to whom Shakespeare had access. In 
other words, if without going back to Plato, Aristotle, and 
works of mediaeval philosophy we have to fix upon a 
printed source for the psychology and ethics underlying 
Shakespeare's poetry of the "discourse of reason," the 
argument for Hooker's Polity is more easy to maintain 
than for any other so far adduced. 

In order that we may examine the underlying psychology 
and ethics let us quote from the poet the passages under 
consideration. In Troilus and Cressida (II, ii, 115-116), 
Hector remonstrates with the impetuous Troilus: 

Is your blood 
So madly hot that no discourse of reason, 
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause, 
Can qualify the same. 

In Othello (IV, ii, 1 52-153) Desdemona protests that her 
will never did trespass against Othello's love, "Either in 
discourse of thought or actual deed." In Hamlet of the 
1604 quarto the hero (I, ii, 143-151) soliloquizes: 

Must I remember. Why, she would hang on him 
As if increase of appetite had grown 
By what it fed on^ . . . Why she, even she — 
Oh God! a beast that wants discourse of reason 
Would have mourned longer! — ^ 

and again (IV, iv, 33-39): ^ 

1 Q. 1603 has: "looked on" for "fed on." 

2 Q. 1603 has "Oh, God a beast Devoid of reason would not 
have made such speed." 

*Not in Q. 1603. 



252 Appendix 

What is a man, 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 
Sure He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and godlike reason 
To fust in us unused. Now whether it be 
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
Of thinking too precisely on the event, — 
A thought which quarter'd hath but one part wisdom 
And ever three parts coward, — I do not know 
Why yet I live to say "This thing's to do;" 
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means 
To do't. 

Let us compare with these extracts the thought of 
Hooker, noting especially the words which I have italicized, 
and remembering that we are already familiar with his 
usage of "discourse of reason." In Bk. I of the Polity, 
we read of "that inferior natural desire which we call 
Appetite: 

''^The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be 
wished for; the object of Will is that good which Reason doth 
lead us to seek. Affections as joy, and grief, and fear, and 
anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions 
and forms of Appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a 
thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of cer- 
tain things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power^ 
whether we will be stirred with affections or no; whereas 
actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the 
power thereof to be performed or stayed, {ijo) . . . Sensible 
goodness is most apparent, near and present, which causeth 
the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked (172) . . . 



Appendix 253 

The rule of natural agents which work after a sort of their 
own accord, as the beasts do, is the judgment of common 
sense or fancy concerning the sensible goodness of those ob- 
jects wherewith they are moved (177) ... It may be 
therefore a question whether those operations of men are 
to be counted voluntary, wherein that good which is sensible 
provoketh Appetite and Appetite causeth action, Reason 
being never called to counsel; as when we eat or drink, and 
betake ourselves unto rest, and such like (170) . . . What 
things are food and what are not we judge naturally by sense; 
neither need we any other law to be our director in that 
behalf than the selfsame which is common unto us with 
beasts (229) . . . The soul of man being capable of a more 
divine perfection hath ... a further ability, whereof in 
them [the beasts] there is no show at all, the ability of 
reaching higher than unto sensible things (167) ... By 
reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that 
are and are not sensible. . . . Man in perfection of nature 
being made according to the likeness of his Maker resembleth 
him also in the manner of working {iGg) .... Yea, those 
men which have no written law of God to show what is 
good or evil, carry written in their hearts the universal law 
of mankind, the Law of Reason, whereby they judge as by a 
ride which God hath given unto all men for that purpose 
(228) . . . And the Law of Reason or human nature is 
that which men by discourse of natural Reason have rightly 
found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto in their 
actions (182) . . . Man doth seek a triple perfection: 
first, a sensual; . . . then an intellectual consisting in 
those things which none underneath man is either capable of 
or acquainted with; lastly, a spiritual and divine, consisting 
in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means 
here, but cannot here attain unto them" (205). 



254 Appendix 

By virtue of reason we look "before and after"; for as 
Hooker says: "Goodness is seen with the eye of the under- 
standing. And the light of that eye, is reason (170) . . . 
And of discerning goodness there are but then two ways; 
the one the knowledge of the causes whereby it is made 
such; the other the observation of those signs and tokens'* 
from which we argue that where they are, goodness will 
be found, " though we know not the cause by force whereof 
it is there" (175). No less fundamental to his discussion 
is the premise that reason must not, as Hamlet says, 
"fust in us unused." "Through neglect thereof [of 
Reason]," Hooker reminds us, '^abused we are with the show 
of that which is not: sometimes the subtlety of Satan in- 
veighing us as it did Eve; sometimes the hastiness of our 
Wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound 
Reason. . . . The search of knowledge is a thing painful; 
and the painfulness of knowledge is that which maketh the 
Will so hardly inclinable thereunto" (173); and then, "the 
soul preferreth rest in ignorance before wearisome labor to 
know" (174). Moreover, "there is no particular object 
so good, but it may have the show of some difficulty or un- 
pleasant quality annexed to it, in respect whereof the Will may 
shrink and decline it" (172). 

There may be nothing in the poetic phrasing or the 
dramatic passion of the "discourse of reason" passages in 
Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet, or in the passage of 
similar psychological and ethical import concerning 
"power into will, will into appetite" from the former play 
to establish beyond shadow of doubt that Shakespeare 
derived the inspiration from Hooker alone; but the verbal 
similarities are striking, and the philosophical trend of 
these and other passages is in every particular paralleled 
by that of the judicious divine. And with but two or 



Appendix 255 

three exceptions the parallels fall within the compass of 
one very small book, 

5. It is an established fact that Shakespeare had read 
Montaigne, and probably in Florio's translation. Every- 
body knows that he took Gonzalo's description of the com- 
monwealth where there is "no occupation; all men idle, 
all" from the original Montaigne or the translation, and 
that more than one other passage comes from one or the 
other — probably the translation. But the induction from 
resemblances to the authentic inspiration of a specific 
writer may be carried to perilous conclusions. For in any 
generation many thinkers will express themselves in similar 
fashion. Mr. Robertson^ finds "a noteworthy resem- 
blance" between "a paragraph in the Apology of Raimond 
Selonde^ in which Montaigne sets over against each other 
the splendour of the universe and the littleness of man," 
and Hamlet's address to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 
(II, ii, 319-321), beginning "This most excellent canopy" 
and concluding: "What a piece of work is man! how 
noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! In form and mov- 
ing how express and admirable! in action how like an 
angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the 
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me what is 
this quintessence of dust?" 

Says Mr. Robertson, "Here the thought diverges, Shake- 
speare making it his own as he always does, and altering 
its aim; but the language is curiously similar." I find as 
fruitful similarity between Hamlet's view of man's quality 
and place in the universe and the view offered by Hooker. 

1 Montaigne and Shakespeare, 52-55. 

2 "Let us see what holdfast" to "equal himself to God." 
Florio's Montaigne's Essays, Bk. II, 12, pp. 203-208 (Temp. CI. 
ed.) 



256 Appendix 

Shakespeare's supremely poetic apostrophe required of 
course no model. But Hooker, having discussed the eter- 
nal law concerning "things natural which are not in the 
number of voluntary agents" — the celestial spheres, our 
earth among them, says (Book I, iv) — "Now that we may 
lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the throne 
of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the 
state of heavenly and divine creatures; touching Angels, 
which are spirits unmaterial and intellectual, the glorious 
inhabitants of those sacred palaces. . . . God which 
moveth mere natural agents as an efficient only, doth 
otherwise move intellectual creatures, and especially his 
holy angels (161). Desire to resemble him in goodness 
maketh them unweariable ... to do all manner of good 
unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto the 
children of men: in the countenance of whose nature 
looking downward, they behold themselves beneath them- 
selves; even as upward in God . . . they see that character 
which is nowhere but in themselves and us resembled. . . . 
Angelical actions may be reduced unto these three general 
kinds: first, most delectable love arising from the visible 
apprehension of the purity, glory, and beauty of God, in- 
visible saving only unto spirits that are pure; secondly, 
adoration , . . thirdly, imitation (162). . . . Thus much 
therefore may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in 
degree are men (164). . . . By proceeding in the knowl- 
edge of truth, and by growing in the exercise of virtue, 
man amongst the creatures of this inferior world aspireth 
to the greatest conformity with God (165). . . . With 
Plato what one thing more usual than to excite men unto 
love of wisdom by showing how much wise men are thereby 
exalted above men; how knowledge doth raise them up into 
heaven; how it maketh them though not gods, yet as gods, 



Appendix 257 

high, admirable, and divine?. . . From utter vacuity 
they grow till they come at length to be even as the angels 
are'' (166). 

Hooker, as quoted earlier, next shows that "the soul of 
man being capable of a more divine perfection hath (be- 
sides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge 
which is common unto us with beasts) the ability of reach- 
ing higher than unto sensible things'' (167), viz., reason; and 
that "man in perfection of nature being made according to 
the likeness of his Maker resembleth him also in the manner 
of working. . . . And that which is good in the actions 
of men [as above in "angelical actions"], doth not only 
delight as profitable, but as amiable also. In which con- 
sideration the Grecians most divinely have given to the 
active perfection of men a name expressing both beauty 
and goodness. (175). . . . And is it possible that Man 
being not only the noblest creature in the world, but even a 
very world in himself, his transgressing the Law of his 
Nature should draw no manner of harm after it? (185). 
. . . What he coveteth as good in itself, toward that his 
desire is ever infinite (202). . . . No good is infinite but 
only God; therefore He our felicity and bliss (203). . . . 
Under Man, no creature in the world is capable of felicity 
and bliss" (204). 

There are resemblances betw^een Hamlet's "To be or not 
to be" soliloquy and passages in Montaigne's twelfth 
essay of the Third Book:^ notably between "take arms 
against a sea of troubles" and Montaigne's "Loe here 
another huddle or tide of mischiefe, that on the neck of 
the former came rushing upon mee"; between Hamlet 

* Printed in parallel columns by Miss E. R. Hooker, Relation 
of Shakespeare to Montaigne (Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass'n Amer , 
N. S., X, 3, 354-355). 



258 Appendix 

on Death — " 'TIs a consummation devoutly to be wished" 
and Florio's translation of aneantissement, etc. — "If it be a 
consummation of one's being, it is also an amendment 
and entrance into a long and quiet night"; and of the 
metaphorical sequence in both: to die; to sleep; to dream 
or not. For these portions of the soliloquy there are no 
analogies in Hooker; but if the reader think it worth while 
to unearth resemblances between Shakespeare's thought 
and diction and the thought and diction of some writer of 
contemporary note, let me refer him again to the half- 
dozen lines of this soliloquy beginning "The oppressor's 
wrong, the proud man's contumely" and the clause in 
Hooker's Polity (196) about the punishment of contumely 
and wrong offered unto any of the common sort" (already 
quoted, p. 188, ante). Perhaps, also, in the conclusion of 
the soliloquy, where the will is described as puzzled by 
uncertainty of thought, reason or consciousness — 

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
• And lose the name of action — 

he may find some reflex of, or similarity to. Hooker's ex- 
position in the Polity (I, vii, 6-viii, 2, pages 172-175): 
"There is no particular object so good, but it may have the 
show of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed 
to it, in respect whereof the Will may shrink and decline 
it. . . . Whereas therefore amongst so many things as 
are to be done, there are so few, the goodness whereof 
Reason in such sort doth or easily can discover, we are not 
to marvel at the choice of evil even then when the contrary 



Appendix 259 

is probably known. . , . The painfulness of knowledge 
is that which maketh the will so hardly inclinable there- 
unto. ... By reason of that original weakness in the in- 
struments, without which the understanding part is not 
able in this world by discourse to work, the very conceit 
of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us. . . . If Reason err, 
we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of the general 
perfection we seek. ... As the straight way is most 
acceptable to him that travelleth, because by it he cometh 
soonest to his journey's end; so in action that which doth 
lie the evenest between us and the end we desire must 
needs be the fittest for our use. ... Of discerning good- 
ness, . . . the knowledge of the causes whereby it is 
made such ... is the more sure and infallible way, but 
so hard that all shun it, and had rather walk as men do in 
the dark by haphazard, than tread so long and intricate 
mazes for knowledge' sake." There may be in Hamlet's 
"native hue of resolution . . . sicklied o'er by the pale 
cast of thought" no adaptation of Hooker's "very conceit 
of the painfulness" of knowledge, which is "as a bridle 
to stay" the will from action, — but merely a similarity in 
the balancing of probabilities about a common problem. 
In all that I have said about conjectural sources for ex- 
pressions that were or may have been proverbial, and for 
trends of thought that might have occurred to any poet 
conversant with contemporary science and speculation, 
my purpose has been not to assert indebtedness, implicit 
or verbal, but to call attention to coincidences. The cumu- 
lative evidence of similarities may persuade some that 
Shakespeare had read the Ecclesiastical Polity. Whether 
he had read it or not, it is certain that about many things 
he thought much as Hooker did, and about many wrote 
much in the same way. 



INDEX 



Abbott, Nathan, 197, 202. 

Accounts of the Revels at Court, 43. 

'Achilles', 245, 246. 

Adams, John and Samuel, 1 1 1, 200, 

Advancement of Learning, 250. 

'Agamemnon', 150, 164, 183. 

Alfred, King, 194. 

Algeere, 58. 

All's Well that Ends Well, 133,134, 

146, 186, 244. 
America, 6, 16, 29, 34, 85, 87, 189, 

198, 200, 201, 202, 207, 213, 214, 

215, 217, 222. 
American Antiquarian Society, Pro- 
ceedings of, 225. 
American Revolution, 95, 112, 113, 

192, 197-201, 203-204, 206-215, 

222, 223, 224. 
'Antonio', in M. V., 8; in The 

Tempest, 62, 68, 69. 
'Antony', 156. 
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 183. 
Archer, Gabriel, 225. 
Argall, Sir Samuel, 5, 6. 
'Ariel', 56-59. 
Aristotle, 102, 109, 171, 180, i8i, 

183, 241, 242, 247, 248, 251. 
Arnobius, Adversus gentes, 172, 

174, 240, 241. 
'Arragon, Prince of, 134. 
Aubrey's Brief Lives, 13, 22, 25. 
Augustine, St., 145, 183, 242. 



Bacon, Sir Francis, 17, 86, 158; 
and the Liberal Movement, 232- 
234, 248, 249, 250. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, 192. 

Bagehot, Walter, 133. 

Bargrave, Captain, 92. 

Barre, Colonel, 198. 

Barrowists, 84, 186. 

Batman's Additions to Bartho- 
leme, 238. 

Bayne, Ronald, 15. 

Beaumarchais, 215. 

Beaumont, Francis, 17, 22, 25, 
79, 80. 

Belgium, 216, 219. 

Bellingham, Governor, 201. 

Berkeley, Sir William, 17. 

Bermudas, the, in relation to The 
Tempest, 19, 22, 42, 44, 48, 50, 
S3, 54, 57, 59, 61, 63, 67, 72, 78, 
226-228, 230. 

Bernhardi, F. von, 159. 

Bill of Rights, the, in, 208, 212. 

Bismarck, Prince, 221. 

Blackfriars Theatre, 14, 21, 22. 

Blackstone, the Commentaries, 208. 

Blake, Admiral, 196. 

Boethius, De Consolatione Philo- 
sophiae, 166, 168, 171, 172, 174, 
176, 178, 179, 234, 237, 240, 242. 

Bracton, Laws and Customs of Eng- 
land, 195. 



261 



262 



Index 



Bradford, William, 6$, 88, 191, 200. 
Brewster, William, 65, 86, 87, 89, 

93, 192- 
Brooke, Christopher, 17, 18, 20, 

22, 24, 28, 29, 81, 8s, 90, 91, 93, 

113, 133, 161, 191. 
Brooke, Lord, see Greville. 
Brown, Alexander, English Politics 

in Early Virginia History, 3, 4, 

7, S3, 199; First Republic in 

America, 92; Genesis of the 

United States, 3, 4, 13, 30, 225- 

229. 
Browne, William, 15. 
Brownists, 65, 84, 93. 
'Brutus', 125, 131. 
Bryce, Viscount, The American 

Commonwealth, 28-30, 208. 
Buchanan, George, De Jure Regni, 

109. 
Buckingham, first Duke of, 90. 
Bunyan, 197. 
Burbage, Richard, 21. 
Burke, Edmund, 196, 198. 

'Cade, Jack', 156. 

'Caliban', 59-63. 

Calvin, 84. 

Campbell, Chief Justice, 141. 

'Carlisle, the Bishop of, 135. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 127. 

Castiglione, 183. 

Cavendish, Sir William, second 

Earl of Devonshire, 90, 93, 114, 

161. 
Caxton, 234. 
Chapman, George, 15, 27, 77, 78; 

translation of the Iliad, 165, 

234-236. 



Charles I, 24. 

Chatham, Earl of, 196. 

Chaucer, translation of Boethius, 

152, 166, 171, 174, 176, 178, 179, 

234-237, 240; Troilus and Cri- 

seyde, 152, 166, 1 76, 178, 179, 

236, 237. 
Chettle, Henry, 122, 123. 
Cicero, 145, 241, 246, 249. 
Clark, A., 25, 
'Claudius', in Hamlet, 135. 
Clement VIII, 98. 
Cliiford Chambers, 30, 31, 32, 37. 
Clive, Lord, 196. 
Coke, Sir Edward, 6, 195, 201, 

214. 
Cotton, John, 192. 
Combe, John, 31, 32. 
Common Law, the, 194-195, 197, 

201-202. 
Concord, 216. 

Condell, Henry, 14-16, 122. 
Connock, Richard, 28. 
Constitution, the American, 108, 

207-211, 213. 
Contrat Social, see Rousseau. 
Convivium Philosophicum, 25-28. 
Coriolanus, i, 40, 41, 133, 187. 
Cornwallis, Lord, 200. 
Court, or Spanish, Party, 3, 5, 6, 

34, 90, 92, 93- 
Cranfield, Lionel, 93. 
Cranmer, George, 86, 87, 89, 106. 
Crashaw, W., New Yeeres Gift to 

Virginea, 226. 
Cromwell, Oliver, i6, 90, 193, 196, 

200. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 157. 
Cunningham, Peter, 43, 44. 



Index 



263 



Dale, Sir Thomas, j, 82, 91, 191, 

200, 228. 
Daniel, Samuel, 76. 
Davenant, Sir Wm., 33. 
Davies, John, of Hereford, 17, 32, 

122, 123. 
Davies, Sir John, 246. 
Davison, Secretary, 86. 
Declaration of Independence, 99, 

108, III, 113, 202, 203, 213. 
Declaration of Rights the Amer- 
ican, 213, 214. 
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 

214. 
De la Warr, Lord, 16, 17, 28, 37, 

42, 50, 52, 161, 191, 226. 
De Selincourt, E., 133, 157. 
Despatch from the Lord De la Warr, 

51, 52, 227, 229, 230. 
Desportes, 121. 
Devereux, Penelope, 121. 
Devereux, Robert, see Essex. 
Devonshire, Duke of, 199. 
D'Ewes' Journal of the House of 

Commons, 84. 
Digges, Sir Dudley, 22, 24, 37, 81, 

90, 114, 161, 202. 
Digges, Leonard, 23, 24, 123. 
'Discourse of Reason,' 188, 189, 

248-255. 
Discovery of the Barmudas, A, see 

Jourdan. 
Donne, John, 14, 21, 26, 28, 29, 38. 
Doyle, J. A., 3, 13. 
Drake, Sir Francis, I, 34. 
Drayton, Michael, 21, 25, 29, 30, 

31, 32, 77, 78, 121. 
Drummond, Wm., 77. 
Dunning, W. A., 107, 205, 212. 



Eastward Hoe, 77. 

Ecclesiastical Polity, Of the Laws of: 
95-114 (political principles); 
162-190 (similarities in Shake- 
speare); 242-259 (ethics and 
psychology of Hooker and 
Shakespeare). See, also, under 
Richard Hooker. 

Eden, Historie of Travayle, 62. 

Edward the Confessor, 194. 

Edward HI, 108. 

Eggleston, E., 6, 229. 

Eliot, Sir John, 90. 

Elizabeth (Lady) Howard of Wal- 
den, 231. 

Elizabeth, Princess, 27, 78. 

Elizabeth, Queen, I, 2, 9, 10, II, 
17, 27, 29, 35, 43, 86, 115, 154, 
^SS, 156, 159, 233- 

Elyot, Sir Thomas, The Governour, 
168, 183, 239. 

Endicott, Governor, 192. 

English Founders of Colonial Lib- 
erty, 1-39, 81-94, 107-114, 191- 
193, 196-197, 200-205, 207-212, 
214-215, 224. 

England and America: their com- 
mon heritage, 191-202. 

Erasmus, 248. 

Essex, Robert Devereux, second 
Earl of, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 

19, 20, 24, 28, 29, 33, IIS, 132, 

156, 234. 

Ethelbert, King, 194. 

Ethics and Psychology of Shake- 
speare and Hooker, 242- 
259. 

Every Man in his Humour, 
62. 



264 



Index 



Excellent Lady, the, of Strachey's 

True Reportory, 231-232. 
'Exeter, Bishop of (//. V.), 145. 

'Falstaff', 125, 126. 
'Fauconbridge', 137, 138, 148, 

149, ISO, 151. 
Federalist, The, 208. 
'Ferdinand', 62. 
Ferrar, Nicholas, 20; Nicholas, 

Jr., 90; William, 20; the Ferrars, 

24, 81, 85, 90, 91, 92, 93, 161. 
Field, Henry and Richard, 38. 
First Alcibiades, The, 246. 
Fiske, John, 199. 
Fitz James, John, 227. 
Fletcher, John, 17, 22, 79, 80. 
Florio, 243, 248, 250, 255, 258- 
Force, Peter, 46. 
Fortescue, De laudibus legum, 46, 

108, 195. 
Fox, Charles James, 198, 200. 
France and America, the source of 

their democratic ideals, 202-215. 
Francis, Sir Philip, 196. 
Franklin, Benjamin, iii, 200. 
Frederick II, 221. 
Freeman, E. A., 122, 123, 195. 
French Revolution, 202-207, 21 1~ 

215. 
Frobisher, Martin, i. 
Furness Variorum, 53, 229, 230. 

Gargantua and Pantagruel, 

238. 
Gates, Sir Thomas, 18, 19, 30, 37, 

42-51,59,61,66,71,75,81,91, 

161, 225-227. 
"Gaunt, John of," 135, 138. 



Gayley, C. M., 25. 

George III, 199. 

Ghost of Richard III, The, by 
Brooke, 21. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, i. 

Glanvil, Ranulf de, 195. 

Globe Theatre, 10, 22, 26. 

Goethe, 221. 

Gondomar, Count, 90, 92. 

'Gonzalo', 62, 68, 69, 255. 

Gonzalus, Ferdinandus Oviedus, 
62. 

Gooch, G. P., 109, 207. 

Goodere, Anne, 21, 30; see Rains- 
ford. 

Goodere, Sir Henry, 29, 30. 

Gosnold, Captain, 3. 

Governour, The, see Elyot. 

Graham, W., 207. 

Grasse, de. Admiral, 215. 

Great Rebellion, the, 90, 200, 215. 

Greene, Herbert E., 71. 

Greville, Sir Fulke, Lord Brooke, 
32-36, 76, 147, 160. 

Grotius, 112. 

'Guildenstern', 255. 

Hamlet, 116, 125, 130, 132, 187, 

189, 243, 246, 248, 250, 251. 
Hakluyt, Richard, 50, 71, 72, 75, 

232; Hakluyt's Navigations, 62; 

Hakluyt Society, 48, 52, 227, 

229. 
Hall, Dr. John, 31. 
Hamilton, Alexander, iii. 
Hampden, John, 90, 192, 196. 
Hancock, John, 200. 
Hanford, J. H., 241. 
Harrington, James, iii, 197, 214. 



Index 



26s 



Hart, A. B., 204. 

Hazlitt, Wm., 132. 

'Hector', 243, 245, 251. 

Heminges, John, 14, 15, 16, 21, 
122. 

Henderson, T. F., 98. 

Henry H, 195. 

Henry HI, 195. 

Henry IV, 24. 

Henry F,9, 125, 137, 143, 145, 148, 
ISO, 153, IS4> 157, 158, 186, 187, 
242. 

Henry VI, Pt. 2, 147. 

Henry VH, 168. 

Henry VII, 22, 79. 

Henry, Patrick, in, 200. 

Herbert, George, 14. 

Herbert, William, see Pembroke; 
Philip, see Montgomery. 

Herkimer, 223. 

Hobart, Sir Henry, 232. 

Holland, Hugh, 17, 18, 26, 28, 77. 

Hooker, Richard, 83-86, 89, 93, 
9S-II4, IIS, 117, 132. 144, 147, 
152, 160; 162-190, Shakespeare 
and Hooker; 192, 197, 200, 201, 
204, 206, 212, 214, 218, 222, 234; 
240-241, Indebtedness to Boe- 
thius and Chaucer; 242-259, The 
Ethics and Psychology of Hook- 
er and Shakespeare. 

Hopkins, Stephen, 63, 65. 

Hoskins, John, 25, 28, 38, 90, 161. 

Howard, Charles, Earl of Notting- 
ham, 232; Thomas and Eliza- 
beth, Baron and Baroness How- 
ard of Walden, 231; Thomas, 
Earl of Suffolk, 231. 

Hume, George, Earl of Dunbar, 



Iliad, 165, 168, 234-236. 
Independence, War of, see Revolu- 
tion, American. 
Inns of Court, 20, 25, 78, 141. 

James I, 2, 9, 11, 17, 19, 20, 27, 35, 

41, 43. 75, 79, 80, 91, 92, 93, 98, 

IIS, 149, 156, IS7, 200, 233, 234. 
Jamestown, 42, 49, 51, 225, 226, 

227, 230. 
"J. D.", see Translations. 
Jefferson, Thomas, in, 1x3, 200, 

213. 
Jewell, Bishop, 96. 
Jodelle, 121. 

John, the King, 195, 200. 
Jonson, Ben, 15, 16, 17, 21, 25, 27, 

29, 31, 32, 77, 122, 123. 
Jourdan, Silvester, A Discovery of 

the Barmudas, 45, 48, 49-55, 59, 

226, 227, 230. 
Julius Casar, 24, 132, 187. 

King John, 144, 148, 149. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 53, 74. 
Kirkham, 21. 
Knox, John, 109. 

Lafayette, the Marquis de, 214, 
215. 

Langley, 'the Gardener' of, 138, 
142. 

Law, Ernest, 44. 

Law of human nature, or reason: 
Hooker's principles, 99, icx), 
107, 109, no, 112, 113; Shake- 
speare's, 141, 142; Shakespeare 
and Hooker compared, 162-190, 
245-255- 



266 



Index 



Law positive, Hooker's, 100-114; 
Shakespeare's, 142; compared 
with Hooker's, 245-255. 

Law of Nations, 152-154, 172-174, 
176, 222. 

Lear, 129, 130, 132, 187. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 200. 

Lee, Sir Sidney, 30, 32, 33, 117, 

139- 

Leicester, Earl of, i, 157. 

Letter to an Excellent Lady {A True 
Repertory), 44, 49-53, 70-76, 
231, 232, and see Strachey. 

Leroy, Loys, 241, 242. 

Leyden, 87, 89. 

Liberal, Independent, or Patriot 
Party, under Elizabeth and 
James I, 2, 39, 40-41, 73, 75, 
81-94, 95, 98, 99, 107-108, III, 
113-114, 115, 128-136, 156-157, 
159-161, 189-191, 233. 

Lincoln's Inn, 20, 26, 

Lisle, Lord, Robert Sidney, 16, 37. 

Littleton, 195. 

Locke, John, Treatise of Civil Gov- 
ernment, 108, III, 113, 197, 204- 
215. 

Lodge, H. C, 5, 6. 

Lopez, Roderigo, 8. 

Luce, Morton, 71, 149. 

'Lucrece', 130. 

Lucy, Sir Thomas, 94. 

Luther, 221. 

Lyly, John, Euphues, 145. 

Macbeth, 186. 
Macduff, 136. 

Macchiavelli, 126, 155, 157-159, 
220. 



Mackail, J. W., 116, 129, 142. 
Magna Charta, 108, 194, 195, 208, 

210. 
Major, John, 109. 
Major, R. H., 51, 229. 
'Malcolm', 136. 
Malone, Edmund, 44, 229, 230. 
Marston, John, 77, 248. 
Martin, Richard, 27, 28, 37, 90, 

161. 
Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Publica- 
tions, 13. 
Mayflower, the, 65. 
M'Clain, E., 202. 
McLaughlin, A. C, 204, 207, 211. 
Measure for Measure, 144, 151, 

187, 246. 
Merchant of Venice, The, 8, 134, 

186. 
Mermaid Club, 26. 
Merrick, Sir Gelly, 10. 
Middle Temple, 27, 28. 
Milton, 193, 197, 214. 
'Miranda', 55, 56. 
Mitre Club, 25-29. 
Montaigne, 48, 189, 242, 243, 247, 

248, 250, 254, 255. 
Montesquieu, 107, 208. 
Montgomery, Philip Herbert, Earl 

of, 13, 16, 37. 
More, Sir Thomas, 48, 108. 
Motteux, 248. 

Much Ado about Nothing, 24. 
Muhlenberg, 223. 
Musophilus, 76. 
Mustapha, 36. 

Neill, E. D., Virginia Company 
of London, 13, 29, 88. 



Index 



267 



Newport, Captain, 45, 64, 226. 
New England, 3, 13, 20, 89, 196, 

222. 
New Place, Stratford, 30, 31, 32, 

33. 
A^ifzf Shakespeare Soc. Transactions, 

238. 
Neville, Sir Henry, 16, 17, 18, 26, 

36, 81, 90, 114, 161. 
Northumberland, Duke of, 199. 
North, Lord, 198. 
Nosce Teipsum, 247. 

Osgood, H. L., 4. 
Othello, 24, 248, 251. 
Otis, James, iii, 200. 

Panurge, 248. 

Patriots of the Virginia Company, 
see Liberal Party. 

Pembroke, William Herbert, Earl 
of, 8, 12-16, 18, 25, 37, 77, 81, 
161. 

Penshurst, Baron, see Lisle. 

Percy, Sir Charles, 9. 

Percy, George, 225, 226. 

Perez, Antonio, 8. 

Petition of Right, 90, iii, 208. 

Phillips, Sir Robert, 27, 90, 114. 

Pilgrims, the, 86, 88. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 
198, 200. 

Pitt, William, the younger, 200. 

Plato, 132, 144, 145, 167, 180, 181, 
183, 189, 236, 241-242, Transla- 
tions and Expositions; 251, 256. 

Players, Leicester's, i; the Cham- 
berlain's, 9, 10; the King's, 14- 
16, 21, 22, 44. 



Plymouth Colony, 65, 87-89, 

192. 
Pokahontas, 77. 
Pollard, A. W., 73, 74. 
Pollock, Sir Frederick, 109, 205. 
Ponet, Bishop, 108. 
Pontoux, Claude de, 121. 
Portland, Duke of, 199. 
Proceedings of the English Colonie 

in Virginia, 74, 229. 
'Prospero', 55, 58-63. 
Prussia, 219. 
Publication of the Counsel! of Vir- 

ginea. A, 46, 47, 226. 
Purchas his Pilgrimes, 50, 70-72, 

76, 225, 229. 
Puritans, 9, 94, 178, 186, 249. 
Pym, John, 16, 90, 182. 

Rabelais, 152, 167, 238, 248. 

Radclyffe, John, 225. 

Rainsford, Sir Henry, and Lady 

R. (Anne Goodere), 21, 30-32, 

37, 121. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, i, 28. 
Raleigh, Professor Sir Walter, 154, 

156. 
Rape of Lucrece, The, 40, 130. 
Records of the Virginia Company, 

13- 
Renaissance, 121, 139, 140, 146, 

159- 
Revolution of 1688, the, in, 112, 

193, 203-205, 207, 212, 215. 
Rich, Robert, see Warwick. 
Richard II, 9, 84, 95, 108, 134, 142, 

143, 148, 186, 187. 
Richard III, 21, 142, 144. 
Rochambeau, 214, 215. 



268 



Index 



Robertson, J. M., 247, 248, 250, 

ass- 
Robinson, Rev. John, 87, 88. 
Romeo and Juliet, 242. 
'Rosencrantz', 255. 
Ronsard, 121. 
Rousseau, 203-208, 212, 213. 

Sackville, Sir Edward, fourth 
Earl of Dorset, 7, 24, 25, 38, 81, 
8S, 91,93, 114, 161. 

Saffron Walden, 231. 

Salisbury, Earl of, 225, 227, 228. 

Sandys, Edwin, Abp. of York, 83, 
96. 

Sandys, Sir Edwin, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 
19, 25, 27, 3S, 36, 40, 41, 52, 69, 
70, 75, 81-94, 96, 106, 107, 108, 
113, 115, 132, 160, 161, 192, 199, 
200, 201, 214, 232, 233. 

Sandys, George, 93. 

Sandys, Robert, 94. 

Sandys, Sir Samuel, 86, 93, 94. 

Scourge of Folly, 32. 

Scrooby, 86, 87. 

'Sebastian', 6o, 68, 69. 

Selden, John, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 38, 
77, 81, 8s, 90, 91, 93, 113, 132, 
161, 201, 214. 

Seneca, 248. 

Separatists, 84, 86, 93. 

Serbia, 216, 219. 

Shakespeare, and the Liberals of 
the Virginia Company, 8-39; his 
Tempest and an unpublished 
letter from Virginia, 40-80; his 
views of the individual in rela- 
tion to the state, 115-161; re- 
semblances between his thought 



and that of Hooker, 162-190, 
242-259; his indebtedness to 
Homer, Boethius, and Chaucer, 
234-238; his plays, see under 
titles; his Sonnets quoted, 11, 12, 
118, 119, 120. 

'Shallow', 9, 94. 

'Shylock', 8. 

Sidney, Algernon, iii, 197, 214. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 12, 16, 33, 34, 
121. 

Sidney, Sir Robert, see Lisle. 

'Silence', 9. 

Smith, Captain John, 46, 74, 225, 
228, 229. 

Smith, Sir Thomas, The English 
Commonwealth, 109, 144. 

Smith, Sir Thomas, of the Va. Co., 

93- 
Social Compact, the, 100-105, ^oy- 

113, 203-207, 210-215. 
Socrates, 144, 248. 
Somers (Summers), Sir George, 42, 

45, SI, 57, 225, 226. 
Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 

Earl of, 2, 6, 8, 9-12, 13, 14, 16, 

17, 18, 24, 27, 35, 37, 70, 77, 81, 

85, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 106, IIS, 

132, 136, 156, 160, 161, 192, 199, 

214, 233, 234. 
Spain, I, 34, 57. For Spanish 

party, see Court. 
Speght's Chaucer, 237. 
Spenser, Edmund, 76. 
Staple of Newes, 77. 
State Papers, Domestic, 8, 13, 25, 

225; Colonial, 13, 227. 
Stationers' Hall and Registers, 38, 

45, 46, 72, 73, 74, 97. 



Index 



269 



'Stephano', 60, 61, 62, 63-65. 

Stith's History of Virginia, 13. 

Strachey, William, and his Letter 
to an Excellent Lady {A True 
Reportory), 44, 49-53, 70-76, 

226, 229-332; Shakespeare's in- 
debtedness to the Letter in the 
composition of The Tempest, 53- 
69. For Strachey's hand in the 
True Declaration and the De la 
Warr Despatch, see 49, 5 1-53, 67, 

227, 229-230; for his Historic of 
Travaile into Virginia, 228, 229, 
232. 

Stratford, i, 14, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 

38, 7(>- 
Stuart, 12, 129, 133, 136, 214, 
Summer Islands, 72, 232. 
Symonds, W., 74, 229. 

Tatlock, J. S. P., 234. 

Tempest, The, i, 19; materials de- 
rived from Strachey, 49-76; 187, 
229. 

'Thersites', 236. 

Thomas, Historye of Italye, 62. 

Thynne's Chaucer, 237. 

Tonson, 56. 

Translations and expositions of 
Plato and Aristotle, 241-242. 

Treatise of Civil Government, see 
Locke. 

Treitschke, 159. 

'Trinculo', 60, 61, 63. 

Troilus and Cressida, i, 40, 41, 146, 
147, 150-153, 163-187, 234, 236, 
241, 243, 245, 248, 251, 254. 

Troilus and Criseyde, see Chaucer. 

True and Sincere Declaration of the 



purpose and ends of the plantation 
begun in Virginia, A, 45, 46, 67, 
80, 226. 

True Declaration of the Estate of 
the Colony of Virginia, A, 46, 48, 
49, 52-54, 56, 67, 75. 227, 229-230. 

True Reportory, A, see Strachey. 

Tudor, 129, 147. 

Twelfth Night, 24. 

'Ulysses', 146, 147, 150-153, 156, 

163-187, 232-248, passim. 
Underhill, Arthur, 141. 
United Netherlands, 210. 
Urquhart, 239. 

Venus and Adonis, 10, 38. 

Verney, Sir Richard, 32. 

Verplanck, 169, 171, 173, 178. 

'Vincentio', 125, 246. 

Virginia, the first Assembly of, 6, 
7, 82, 92; the Charters, 4, 5, 6, 
20, 35, 42, 81, 85, 91, 108, III, 
198, 232. 

Virginia Company, of London, 2-7, 
8-39, 43, 44, 45, 50, 74, 75, 85, 
87, 89-93, 99, m; of Plymouth, 
19. 

Virginia Council, 3, 8-34, 36-38, 
42, 46, 51, 69, 70, 74, 80, 81, 91, 
93, 98, 115, 160, 161, 231, 232, 

233- 

Virginia Courts, 6, 20, 90, 92. 

Virginia Expedition of 1609, pam- 
phlets and data relative to, 225- 
229. 

'W. S.', 229. 
Walton, Isaac, 96, 98. 
Want, John, 231. 



270 Index 

Warwick, Robert Rich, Earl of, 35, Weymouth, Captain, 3. 

92, 93. Whitaker, Alexander, 192, 228. 

Washington, Alice, and Elizabeth, Whitehall, 43, 44, 129. 

94. Winthrop, Governor John, 192, 
Washington, George, 94, ill, 196, 200, 201. 

200, 223. Wolfe, General, 196. 

Weever, 122. Wood, Anthony, 13. 

West, John, 18, 28; Thomas, see Wyatt, Sir Francis, 191, 200. 

De la Warr. Wycliff, John, 108. 



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Representative English Comedies Vol. I 



FROM TEE BEGINNINGS TO SHAKESPEARE 

With introductory essays and notes. An historical view of our earlier comedy and other monographs 
by various writers uttder the general editorship of 

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Lirr.D., LL.D., 
Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of California 

Cloth, 8vo, 686 pages, $2.00 

The aim of this volume and those which will follow is to indicate the de- 
velopment of a literary type by a selection of its representative specimens, 
arranged in the order of their production and accompanied by critical and 
historical studies. So little has been scientifically determined concerning 
evolution or permutation in literature that the more specific the field of in- 
quiry, the more trustworthy are the results attained, — hence the limita- 
tion of this research not merely to a genus like the drama, but to one of 
its species. What is here presented to the public differs from histories of 
the drama in that it is more restricted in scope and that it substantiates 
the narrative of a literary growth by reproducing the data necessary to an 
induction; it differs from editions of individual plays and dramatists, on 
the other hand, because it attempts to concatenate its text by a running 
commentary upon the characteristics of the species imder consideration as 
they successively appear. It is an illustrated, if not certified, history of 
English comedy. 

CONTENTS 

I. An Historical View of the Beginnings of the Engush Comedy. By Charles Mills 

Gayley. 
II. John Heywood: Critical Essay. By Alfred W. Pollard. 
Edition of the Play of the Wether. The same. 
Edition of a Mery Play between Johan Johan, Tyh. The same. 

III. Nicholas Udall: Critical Essay. By Ewald Flugel. 

Edition of Roister Doister. The same. 
Appendix on Various Matters. The same. 

IV. William Stevenson: Critical Essay. By Henry Bradley. 

Edition of Gammer Gurlon's Nedle. The same. 
Appendix. The same. 
V. John I^yly: Critical Essay. By George P. Baker. 

Edition of Alexander and Campaspe. The same. 
VI. George Peele: Critical Essay. By F. B. Gummere. 
Edition of The Old Wives' Tale. The same. 
Appendix. The same. 
VII. Greene's Place in Comedy: A Monograph. By G. E. Woodberry. 
VIII. Robert Greene: His Life, and the Order of His Plays. By Charles Mills Gayley. 
Edition of the Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon. The same. 
Appendix on Greene's Versification. The same. 
IX. Henry Porter: Critical Essay. By Charles Mills Gayley. 
Edition of The Two Angry Women of Abington. The same. 
X. Shakespeare as a Comic Dramatist. By Edward Dowden. 
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Representative English Comedies Vol. II 



THE LATER CONTEMPORARIES OF SHAKESPEARE 



BEN JONSON AND OTHERS 

With introductory essays and notes and a comparative view of the fellows 
and followers of Shakespeare under the general editorship of 

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D., 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of 

California 

Cloth, 8vo, 586 pages, $2.00 

In this volume are included a number of the plays of Ben 
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of these has been edited by a scholar of unquestioned standing, 
and is accompanied by an introductory critical and historical 
essay. Furthermore, Professor Gayley, the general editor, has 
included a most scholarly introduction in the form of an essay 
entitled "A Comparative View of the Fellows and Followers of 
Shakespeare in Comedy." 

CONTENTS 

I. A Comparative View of the Fellows and Followers of Shake- 
speare. (Part One.) By Charles Mills Gayley. 
II. Ben Jonson: Critical Essay. By Charles H. Herford. 
Edition of Every Man in His Humour. The same. 

III. Ben Jonson: Critical Essay. By Charles Mills Gayley. 

Edition of Epiccene, or the Silent Woman. The same. 

IV. Ben Jonson. The Alchemist: Critical Essay. By George A. 

Smithson. 
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By John W. Cuncliffe. 
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thews Manly. 
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Tlepresentative English Comedies Vol. Ill 



THE LATER CONTEMPORARIES OF SHAKESPEARE 



FLETCHER AND OTHERS 

With introductory essays and notes and a comparative view of the fellows 
and followers of Shakespeare under the general editorship of 

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D., 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of 

California 

Cloth, 8vo, 66 J pages, $2.00 

This volume, like the second one of this series, con- 
tains plays of the later contemporaries of Shakespeare. 
The editors of the different plays are scholars of w^ide 
reputation who have made a special study of the period 
and the various dramatists here represented. In this 
volume Professor Gayley's masterly essay on "The Fel- 
lows and Followers of Shakespeare" is brought to a 
close. 

CONTENTS 

I. A COMPAEATIVE ViEW OF THE FeLLOWS AND FOLLOWERS OF SHAKE- 
SPEARE IN Comedy. (Part Two.) By Charles Mills Gayley. 
n. Thomas Dekker: Critical Essay. By Alexis F. Lange. 
Edition of The Shomakers Holiday. The same. 

in. MiDDLETON and RoWLEY. ThE SPANISH GiPSIE: CRITICAL ESSAY. 

The late H. Butler Clarke. 
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rv. John Fletcher. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife: Critical Essay. 
George Saintsbury. 
Edition of Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. The same. 
V. Philip Massinger: Critical Essay. Brander Matthews. 

Edition of A New Way to Pay Old Debts. The same. 
VI. RICHA3EU) Brome: Critical Essay. G. P. Baker. 
Edition of The Antipodes. The same. 
Vn. James Shirley: Critical Essay. Sir A. W. Ward. 

Edition of The Roy all Master. The same. 
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A Life of William Shakespeare 

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extent, in what direction, and upon what material the original 
edition (pubhshed in 1898) has been supplemented by this, the 
third. It is the more difficult to indicate precisely what the 
world owes anew to the greatest of Shakespeare's English biog- 
raphers, because the amplifications are in the nature of refitting 
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corporated in the old. The largest portions of the documentary 
evidence revealed in the researches of recent years by Sir Sidney 
himself and other scholars concern the stage history of Shake- 
speare's period, various problems of Shakespearean bibliography, 
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wickshire from Elizabethan and Jacobean archives at Stratford 
and the wills of Shakespeare's Stratford friends at Somerset 
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Shakespeare 

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say that there are few people — few scholars — who would not 
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Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker 

A Popular Illustration of Fiction as 
the Experimental Side of Philosophy 

By RICHARD G. MOULTON, M.A., Ph.D. 

Cloth, i2mo, 381 pages, $1.50 

"The book is in reality a thoughtful exposition of the marvellous 
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character good and bad to its logical outcome. The author has done 
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well worth reading." — Providence Journal. 

" One of the most sensible and illuminating works of modern literary 
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necessary to be a Shakespeareographer or a student of isms to enjoy, 
but a reasonable disquisition of the ordinary problems of life based on 
a collection of life dramas which are familiar to every one ; an excellent 
idea ; for, as the author says, the study of human life will never hold its 
own, in comparison with the study of human nature, until we recognize 
the true position of poetry and fiction in philosophy." — Brooklyn Daily 
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" A unique study of Shakespeare that will be of peculiar interest to 
scholars and students of ethics. The vast proportion is comment upon 
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books about books, the fact remains that young, and even older, stu- 
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